Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and confirm the proposed General Plan Land Use Element and Urban Design Element PlaceType and Heights Maps, and direct staff to update the Program Environmental Impact Report; and Increase appropriations in the Development Services Fund (EF 337) in the Development Services Department (DV) by $350,000, offset by funds available. (Citywide)
Great. Thank you. And let's find out. What's my baby at home? Thank you very much. Okay. We're going to go ahead and get started with the with the agenda. The hearing is up. First, I just want to explain how hearings work. Hearings are a little different than a regular agenda item. And so I just want to make sure everyone is aware if you haven't been through a hearing before. So in a hearing, the clerk will introduce the item I want you to do staff who will then make the presentation. Then there is the public hearing or public comment. Then I have to close the public comment hearing period and then open up council deliberations. So that is how the hearing will go, just so that we're all aware of the process. And with that, I'm going to turn this over to the clerk. Report from Development. Services recommendation to receive supporting documentation under the record, conclude the public hearing and confirm the proposed general plan, land use element and urban design element, place type and heights, maps and direct staff to update the program IIR and increase appropriations in the Development Services Fund in the Development Services Department by 350,000, offset by funds available citywide. Okay. Thank you. And with that, I'm going to turn this over now to our city management team. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the city council. I'm Tom Modica. I'm the assistant city manager. And it's my pleasure to lead the presentation tonight along with our staff from Development Services. Behind me are Linda Tatum, our planning bureau manager, Kari Tai, our current planning officer, and four new one of our planners. So I. Will have a. Fairly lengthy presentation tonight. This is a very complex subject. It's one where we've obviously heard a lot of community concerns and a lot of very good questions being asked. So we're going to spend some time going through kind of what is the plan and how did we get here and why are we doing this? And talk a lot about those community concerns that we've heard and how the plan addresses those. At that point, we'll be looking for public comment, of which we believe we're going to have a lot tonight. And then we'll be turning to the council. And I will. And the council we expect we'll be making several changes to the plan as we as we consider this. And so if we can bring up the staff report, please, on the screen. Okay. There we go, Mr. Murdoch. And as the presentation comes up, I just want to also just remind the audience that once a presentation is over and we do, we begin the public comment period. Folks have a variety of input, will have different ideas and people will have different opinions. I just want to make sure that we're all respectful of everyone's opinions, regardless of what their opinion is, that everyone has a chance, a right to be heard. And so I want to make sure that we respectful of not just the people speaking, but of the staff as well. And so. Mr. Modica. Thank you very much, sir. So we're going to start by talking a little bit about what a general plan is. And so a general plan is really a long range policy document that guides future development. There is a requirement for every city to have a general plan, and there are seven elements that are required by state law . One of the key components of a general plan is that it must accommodate the required amount of population growth, and that's set by the state of California. The zoning ordinance is another part that we talk about often, and that's different than the general plan that implements general plan policies through detailed development regulations. Those are things like specific use types, building standards. It talks about allowable uses on each parcel and its development standards and parking requirements. So that's a granular level down from the general plan. And then the entitlement. We've all heard that word before. And when a building is granted an entitlement, what that really is, is the approval from the regulatory body to use or develop that land. And so that is your permits to be able to build or remodel or expand. And so the state gives us some guidelines on what is the land use element and really it designates type intensity and general distribution of uses of land. And those are for things like housing, business, industry, open space, our educational facilities, our public buildings and waste disposal facilities, those types of things. Typically, a land use element is a long term planning horizon. It's about 20 years or more. We also we'll be talking tonight, tonight about something called an urban design element. And that really is something that looks into the three dimensional realm. So you're focusing on what a place actually looks like when it's built the relationships of the buildings to each other into public spaces, as well as design and quality of sidewalk. So ensuring that you're going to get quality design as we plan our city for the next 20 years. And so the general plan has a number of visions and goals. These were drafted as we went out in 2004 to 2006 and really looked at and asked the community for what is it that you want to have as a city, the planning commission and the city council as well. And so those goals are things like implement sustainable planning and development, strengthening our fiscal health by stimulating continuous economic development and job growth, accommodating strategic growth and change, supporting neighborhood preservation and enhancement. Diversifying our housing opportunities. Ensuring a fair and equitable land use plan, providing reliable public facilities and infrastructure, increasing access to and the amount and the distribution of our green and open space and preserving and protecting our natural resources. And so the vision of the plan that you're going to see tonight, it is a complex plan, but it essentially boils down to a couple of things. It's really about a strong urban center in the downtown. We know that a lot of growth is happening currently in the downtown and it's been planned for growth in the downtown plan is working very, very well. And this plan encourages that. We're also looking at creating a very strong North-South connection along the Metro Blue Line. We're very fortunate to have transit in our town. That really is the future for cities. All great cities have some type of strong transit system, and we have one along the Metro Blue Line that we're looking to in to be able to enhance some opportunity around that. And then the plan also looks for some modest growth throughout the city so that there's other opportunities and we have a balanced city. The land use is more than just residential development. You'll hear a lot about that tonight, but really also plans for commercial, open space and industrial development. So why should we update the plan? What are some of the reasons? I'd like you to take you through a couple of numbers just to give you a sense of of the need. And the first one really is looking at what when did we last do this? When were we all sitting in these seats? And it wasn't us. It was our our predecessors. But when were people here making this decision? It was in 1989. That was the last time that we enacted the current land use settlement. Then that horizon year for the current land use element is 2000, so it planned out 20 years to 2000 and obviously we're 18 years past that horizon date. That plan. The current one really does not address climate change. There are no policies on sea level rise. There are no policies on environmental justice and no policies on disadvantaged communities. And those are all things we talk about now, but weren't really talked about in 1989. We've grown since 1989. We have 44,000 new residents that have added to our city since 1989. But we really didn't grow in terms of housing. We have built one housing unit for every ten population growth in our city over that time period. We all know that housing is expensive in Long Beach and the median 2018 home value right now is $579,000 and $500. So what does it take to actually own that kind of a house? It takes $118,000 of joint income to pay the mortgage on that house and the taxes. Not even to mention affording the down payment. And so as we look at just some examples of affordability, a Long Beach Unified schoolteacher currently makes about $58,000 starting salary. Starting salary of a Long Beach fire recruit is 58,000, and the starting salary of an accountant is about 50,000. And so what else has changed since 1989? Besides 44,000 new residents, our port has grown dramatically. We are tripling the size of our throughput at the port. We did not have a blue line in 1989, so that has changed and we're very different now. We've had investment in bike and pedestrian and infrastructure. We've had a major renaissance in downtown and the aquarium didn't exist back then. Also the pike and I should say the new Pike. The old pike did exist earlier, but the new pike didn't exist and our downtown town landscape was very different. Additionally, the Internet really came on board in 1990, so the first World Wide Web browser was created and e-commerce has really taken off. So back then, e-commerce wasn't really something we looked at. Now it's 8% of national retail sales. We've changed the way that we shop. The Grove is a great example where the Grove in 2002 was the first kind of entertainment destination, where instead of just going to get something to shop and leave, you're there for an experience. And so we're seeing those throughout the region now, including in Long Beach, the Navy coast. We lost about 50,000 aerospace and Navy jobs over that time period. And we've had this paradoxical rising of population and falling public school employment. So one of the other reasons we really look at a land use element is to implement our economic blueprint. That's something the city council spent a lot of time putting into place over the last two years, a big priority of the mayor and council. And so updating our general plan will allow us to remain an engine for growth. We will look at economic inclusion and development and create some development standards and future predictability of where growth will go. We also need to pay attention to our assessment for fair housing. This is a federal requirement to make sure that we are treating people fairly and that we have equity and people of all types can find housing in Long Beach. And of course, our affordable housing and workforce incentives. So establishing incentives and strategies for housing production throughout Long Beach and also looking at some of our specific plans and how to provide regulatory relief. So it's also take a look at a little bit about who we are. So we all get a sense of that. We are a population of 485,000 people, and we're the seventh largest city in California. Although we're the seventh largest, we have the 10th slowest growth rate of the top ten cities. So of the top ten cities, we are the slowest growing at 0.66%. But even at this rate of growth, it's about 3200 new residents a year. And if we were to put all of them and put a housing unit around those 3200, that's about a thousand units that we should be building to keep up with that growth and our arena numbers. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. Our housing production goal is actually lower than that at 783. So we're also a younger population relative to our neighbors, relative to Los Angeles, the state and the country. We are younger. Our median age is 34. Half of our residents fall under the age of 20 to 54 years old. And we also have a smaller elderly population. But we're going to see that population grow over time. We've also changed as a community in terms of our demographic makeup. In 1980, our Latino population was 14%. Today, it's 40. To. 46% of all Long Beach residents speak a language other than English at home. We are also a city, primarily of renters. Many of us in this room are fortunate enough to own a house here in Long Beach, but actually we are the minority. 60% of people who live in Long Beach are renters rather than owners. Household types. Our household is 176,000 households with an average size of 2.8 people. The majority, 61%, were families. 51% had children. But what we've seen as a trend since 2000 is that families with children have decreased by 11%, while families without children have increased by 14%. So let's talk a little bit about our housing and our housing stock. We have 176,000 total housing units in Long Beach. We have a 4.6 vacancy rate. That is how many of those are actually vacant at any given time. And our housing stock is primarily in two different areas. Single family homes are about 42% and multifamily buildings are about 39% of our housing stock. And a diverse housing stock really is important to ensure that all households have the ability to find housing that's suited to their lifestyle. We have an older housing stock. About 57% of the housing is over 50 years old. Here in Long Beach, we are an old city and 85% is over 30 years old. So we really don't have a lot of the newer stock that maybe some other cities do see. So why is an update necessary? We've kind of established kind of what we look like and what how things have changed, but why should we be going through this effort? So I want to point out that about 12% of our population are overcrowded. That's 56,000 people live in overcrowded conditions, and that's according to federal standards. We also look at what people pay for and what their housing. And typically about 30% is what has been recommended in the past to pay for housing. And 24% of our population or 114,000 people pay more than 50%. And 47% of our population or 2220 1000 people pay more than 30%. This plan also looks at growing jobs. So it's not just about housing. We are planning for about 28,000 jobs, 20,500 under the proposed we update. So the economic blueprint really is important. As I said before, it's really changed the way that we shop, the way that we engage in business growth and in job growth since 1989. And we need to be able to keep up with that. So this is just a graph that shows you that e-commerce sales nationwide has doubled in just the past six years. So many of us that would never have used Amazon ten years ago are now finding that that's the way that we purchase things. And I do that myself. I love to shop local, but I now find sometimes the convenience of Amazon is is alluring. And so we're changing the way that we that we interact with our city. An increase housing shortage. We're really looking at a housing crisis here in Long Beach. There is not enough housing being built to meet the current population growth in the city, let alone future growth. Our land use element does not plan, are currently in development, does not plan for sufficient housing opportunities. And without an update, we're going to see conditions worsen for a number of residents. Seniors and students in particular are having very difficult times finding options for housing. And so the state does give us goals on what we should be producing. Those are called arena numbers or regional housing needs assessment. And at this point, it's a production requirement. It's not a production goal or it's I'm sorry, it's a production goal, not a production requirement. And our goal is about 783 units a year. We have a goal to build 7000 units over the next four, eight years. And they tell us in what categories those should be created. And actually, our number one largest bucket is above moderate income at 3000 units. And then you'll see on the chart moderate income, low income and very low income. And so we wanted to give you a sense of how we're doing. This shows kind of our housing starts from 2006 to 2017. And then you can see our annual goal at the top. That's that 783 number at the top. So even with the housing boom, we are doing very well right now in terms of a lot of projects in downtown in 2016, 2017. Even with those years, we have not met our annual growth numbers. And so there are some consequences to not updating a land use element. It is severely out of date as we as we have looked at tonight. And that can open the city up to some potential legal challenges. We also have seen some state bills being proposed or have gone into effect that really are targeting cities that aren't planning for additional housing and additional opportunities. And so we are concerned that state might come in and impose some sanctions on jurisdictions that are not meeting their production goals. And then we do believe that growth is going to happen one way or the other, that we have seen that in the past. Even if we didn't have an updated plan, we saw for 44,000 people come to our city. So we think development is likely to happen without L.A. settlement, but it won't happen in a haphazard manner that isn't really planned and doesn't have a community vision. And so I want to talk a little bit of our process so far. How did we get here? And before we even get into community input and engagement, I do want to pause and just say there are several people we've heard them very, very loud that have felt that we have not had enough opportunity to engage. And we take that incredibly seriously. Our plan, whenever we do an effort like this, is to reach out, to get to a representative population, to reach people who want to talk to us, and also people that we would normally not engage with City Hall, because they're, you know, busy living their lives. And we try to reach everybody. And so we'll go through and tell what our plan was. But I do want to acknowledge that there are many who felt that we didn't do enough. We can always learn from our from processes. Yes, there's more that we could have done. But I do want to acknowledge that a lot has been done and you and your city has adapted. So in the past 18 months, we've heard a lot of concern. And so the city council has asked us to adapt. They've asked us to hold those meetings that had thousands of people with them. We've had roundtable meetings, so we'll talk a little bit about that. But I do want to acknowledge that we we always do want to reach everyone who wants to engage with us so that 170 community engagement meetings over the past 12 years, including ramping up to 67 engagement meetings just over the last two years. We went and you know these are be in the in the slide for you to take a look at but there's kind of three different sections. There's 2040, 2017 where we went to community engagement events, general plan festivals, planning commission. We did some visioning, we reached out, we did some surveys. I'll go to the next slide from February 2017 to 20th August 2017. We additionally had more planning commission meetings and study sessions. We did some specific outreach to really to some of the environmental justice groups, to the plan opponents. And then we came to the council and the Planning Commission and then really in the last several months, we've had the big the biggest amount of outreach where we had those four large citywide community meetings with a thousand attendees each. This has been one of the biggest processes in terms of community engagement that we've seen, at least since I've been with the city. And then we did additional targeted outreach to really go out and talk to people. And then we also had our survey responses. And then of course that culminated with the latest round of the meetings, the roundtable meetings that the Mayor had organized with Kono to get additional information and sense of the district. And so this is an evolving process. The maps have changed. They have changed many, many times, and they've changed. We expect them fully to change again tonight. And so I do want to recap quickly what those are. I'm not going to go through every change, obviously, but just a sense of what has happened. We have made changes in all nine council districts. Every single district has had a change throughout this process, reducing height and reducing intensity. What the plan looks like now is 44% of the city is really that single family place type that is are single family neighborhoods. Nothing is changing. And those in those single family neighborhoods, those 44%, 19% are regional serving uses. These are things like our airport, our port and other infrastructure. 16% are public and private open spaces and parks. 6% are those neighborhoods serving corridors and centers, which are the possibility for future mixed use. 5% are multifamily developments. Those are apartment buildings. Essentially, 2% are transit oriented development around major transit stations. 2% is the downtown plan and 1% is community commercial. Those are the traditional community shopping centers. And so the staff in the Planning Commission have made a lot of changes to heightened density essentially since August. In August, we heard a lot of input. We went out, we had those meetings, we came back as staff and we as staff recommended 686 acres of density, reduced the planning commission in December, took it further and reduced 98 acres. And on Slide 51, the next slide, I just want to give a sense of what those are. These are not a comprehensive list of everything that's changed, but just showing in District one, it's things like Linden has changed and Seventh Street has changed. District 2/7 Street, Crafton Village, Historic District and Alameda Speech Fourth and Seventh Streets in the Convention Center in District three. It's been Redondo and Belmont Pier and Los Altos and Iron Triangle, seventh Recorder, Toledo, Bayshore and Studebaker in the Fourth District, Redondo, South Anaheim. Anaheim Corridor and the surrounding neighborhoods traffic circle in the surrounding neighborhoods Whaley Park, Bellflower and Stearns. We know that is the Sears site. This downtown shopping center has changed and the surrounding area as well, as well as Palo Verde District five, Bellflower and Carson, the Long Beach Town Center, Wardlow and Los Coyotes, Spring and Palo Verde Losing Coyotes in Spring. The Kmart site Spring and Clark District six, the Pacific Corridor, the PCH, west of Magnolia Pine and Willow and the Toddler Areas. District seven Springdale, California Heights, Willow Springs Park Area District eight. Pacific Place, Long Beach Boulevard, Atlantic, Paramount and South Street and District nine. Long Beach Boulevard. Atlantic and South Atlantic and Artesia. Atlantic and Cherry Atlantic. North and 91. Sorry, Cherry Avenue Atlantic is the paramount south street of Cherry and South Street. If we were to read all the changes, it would take a long, long time. Those are all in your packets. We've been trying to provide the maps, but I just wanted to give you a sense of that's what's happened to date. And we expect to hear a number of changes happen today. So with that, I'd really like to turn it over to Linda Tatum to kind of go through some of the community concerns. We've got probably about ten of the major ones that we hear. And we'd like to provide you some information of what we are hearing and how the plan addresses those. So with that, I'd like to turn it to Linda Tatum, our planning bureau manager. Thank you, Tom. I'd like to just first acknowledge that we as Tom mentioned earlier, we had an extensive series of community outreach efforts, and the staff took it very, very seriously to to listen to what the community was saying. And what we've done is we've heard you and I'd like to address some of the concerns that you've heard that we heard in the outreach process and then to talk about how some of those concerns. Will be addressed. The first one that we heard and probably one of the more significant concerns that we heard at every single meeting was the issue of parking. The reality of the situation is that the parking the parking in the city is actually addressed in the zoning code, but it also works in conjunction with the land use element. Parking requirements are specified by a land use. They're not necessarily based upon the location or the zoning, but generally they're based upon the particular type of land use activity that occurs on a site. And I'd like to just summarize that for you for for residential in particular. And you can see in this example, as it turns out, parking does vary for residential based upon the location because we have some very unique zoning areas in the downtown plan is one of those. And based upon the transition to a proximity proximity to transit, the parking is the least that's where we have the least required parking in the downtown area because you do have immediate access to high quality transit. That requirement is 1.2 spaces in the Midtown Space Midtown Corridor plan. That's along the Long Beach Boulevard corridor. That number does go up. You still have access to transit. It's a little bit lower because you have access to transit, but it's not as as high as it is when you get away from the transit. Again, you can see in the transit oriented development quarters and again, that would be along the the Long Beach Boulevard corridor where it's within the Midtown specific plan. That space requirement goes up to 1.75. And then for all areas of the city, the parking requirement for a typical two bedroom is 2.25 parking spaces. So the good news is that as new development occurs, it is always required to provide onsite parking now in this city because a lot of the development that has already occurred in the city occurred at a time when the zoning code didn't require parking. There's a lack of parking in a lot of the neighborhoods. And we heard that loud and clear. And again, what we're saying is that as new development occurs, they will provide parking and that those new developments will take some of the some of the the stress off of the parking situation because they will park at least for themselves. I'd also like to acknowledge that the city's public works department is constantly looking at and implementing additional ways to address parking. We know that some of the efforts they've recently implemented include some changing, some streets, taking away the parallel parking on the street, and providing angled parking that increases the available parking. They've also established preferential parking districts in some areas at the request of those specific neighborhoods, and they've also established metered parking in some of the business districts. Again, a way of turning over the parking spaces to address and to try to mitigate parking as much as possible. I'd like to talk about another concern that we heard. We know that the state is very active and aggressive in terms of trying to pass state laws that do affect local governments and how they regulate development, in particular housing development, because Tom mentioned that this state is in a housing crisis. So the state is constantly trying to try to force local government to to make it easier to to develop housing. One of those bills is SB 35, and I'd like to just summarize what that law requires. This was passed last year, and it was really designed to to streamline qualifying projects, multifamily projects that are affordable. The the central tenant or the central requirement is that is that development projects that are affordable must meet certain, very, very specific and stringent standards in order to be eligible for a for that streamlining process. And when they do become eligible, they must still comply with the height limit that would be established in the land use element . There is no provision in SB 35 for a project to exceed the this the standards that are established in the land use element. The other thing is that it the SB 35, it actually requires the city to approve a set project ministerial fee, which means the city doesn't have any discretion on the project. It must be approved consistent with whatever those the existing zoning and development standards are for that project and they are not subject to secure. And that is a part of the state's intent to just make sure that projects are streamlined as quickly as possible. And the other significant component of 30 SB 35 is that it allows a project to to proceed with reduced parking or no parking. However, in our experience in the city, it is rare to have a project even when they can come in with no parking. We have not had any projects, residential or otherwise, come in without parking. It is just not in the development's best interest to not provide parking. So I'd like to talk about another one that you've. We heard of. It's called the Density Bonus Program. That's another state law. It's been around since 1979, and it essentially allows a developer of an affordable housing project in exchange for setting aside a certain percentage of the units as affordable. They are allowed to get concessions from the local government, and those concessions can range anywhere from it can range from 5% or 35%. It really depends upon the level of affordability for the project and the number of units in the project, and they can ask for concessions in the way of parking. They can ask for a concession for a reduced setback, a taller building, a higher building, a smaller unit, less open space or additional height. However, in no case can they actually come in and get an automatic 35% increase in height. That is typically negotiated as a part of the review of the development project. And it is extremely unusual to come in and have a project go. Even a typical project may exceed the height and go one additional story, but it's highly unlikely that you need to go anything more than one additional storey in compliance with the density bonus provisions. And just to give you a little sense of the history here in Long Beach, even though. Even though the state law has been in effect since 1979. Between 1983 and 2017, the city has had only 18 projects that come in under a density bonus, and we've had only one project since 2012. So the next one I'd like to talk about that we heard a lot of feedback from the community was regarding infrastructure and the need to make sure that as new development occurs, the infrastructure is in place in the community to support those projects. And the most significant way that this is addressed is actually through the payment of impact fees. Any new development project, whether it's a commercial project or residential project, is required to pay fairly substantial impact fees. Those fees cover the costs of upgrading the city's roads. They also cover the costs of police, fire, water, sewer and school facilities. All of these impacts are paid by the developer on a project by project basis. And the other benefit of those impact fees is that as the city collects property taxes, the property taxes for new developments are assessed at a much higher rate than those older properties that were developed under the Prop 13 or since Prop 13 went into effect. And the other thing to note is that thanks to the voters of the city last year, measure measure A was passed and that was a bond to substantially enhance the city's infrastructure. And that's everything from roads to sewer and water, in addition to the impact fees. Another major pretty significant concern that we heard probably as much as is parking was the issue of traffic. And I'd like to just acknowledge that traffic is is not really a local phenomenon. It is a regional phenomena as the city sits in a region. And even if you're not coming to the city, people are driving through the city. And as growth in the region occurs and economic, economic activity occurs, traffic will continue to grow and that will occur whether or not the land use element is adopted. I just want to highlight that when the city, like in our city, we have approximately 70% of the city's residents actually leave the city to to go to work. They're employed outside of the city. And it's things like that. Jobs balance, jobs, housing imbalance, where you having to get in your car to drive outside of the city that could contributes to the additional traffic. And I mentioned earlier that new development is required to to pay for traffic improvements. And when we did the ER on the project it showed, as we well knew, that traffic would continue to increase and again that traffic would increase with or without the land use element. Ways to address reduction in traffic is providing new jobs locally. Also providing other goods and services that people use on a day to day basis is providing that locally so they they don't have to necessarily drive so that they can walk to those services or that they can drive to those services closer in the city rather than having to leave the city. And other ways that the city can actually reduce traffic are through other measures to such as having mixed use development projects. When you have a mixed use development project, you can have a residential project, residential project above ground for commercial. And in theory, you could live and work in the same building and would not necessarily have to to get in a car to to have access to services. Also, that's what occurs primarily in our downtown, where you have a lot of residential, but you have also very easy access to not only jobs, but you also have have access to transit. So we'd like to suggest that while the land use element does never does not envision a future without cars, it is not planning for a future without cars. It does include a land use pattern that will facilitate having easy access to goods and services. It actually promotes different modes of transportation. It doesn't assume that everybody's going to drive their car, but it envisions and it promotes people not driving cars and being able to walk, walk to their jobs, walk to services, or take a bike, take an Uber, or use the public transit that's available here in the city. Another issue that we heard was about the planning horizon. Tom mentioned earlier that the general plan is a long range document. It is required by state law to be long term. The state law recommends or suggests a 20 year time frame, however, that 20 year timeframe. While it's really typical and common for most cities to plan for a 20 year timeframe, that is not a hard requirement. However, we think that it's good planning practice. We think that it makes sense to plan for a 20 year timeframe because when you plan for a land use plan, you can also make your planning in conjunction with your other infrastructure facilities. The city has master plans for sewer and water and even master plans for its roadway system. And all of those are long range planning documents. And because the planning, the land use element in the general plan works and in concert with those other elements of the cities, the city's other systems, it really makes sense to look at all of those on a on a cohesive level. So planning for a 20 year timeframe for your land use element, it really does work in concert with your other infrastructure master plans, and it just makes sense to look at a longer term plan. The other rationale for looking at a longer time period is that, as you probably know, this process has been a very lengthy process. It's a fairly costly process in terms of the special studies that are needed, in terms of the community outreach that is needed, and just doing the staff work that it takes to get the plan done. So it's a costly process and that's the other basis for having it extended out or over a longer time period. So the point is that regardless of the time frame that you establish in your general plan, your plan really should be reviewed regularly and updated when it's appropriate. We know that our plan was last updated in 1989, and that is really too long of a time period to have a plan go without being updated. So we're recommending that the 20 year timeframe and. What you'll see included in the plan is a requirement or a an opportunity for the city to review the plan annually. There is a requirement in the administration of the plan that has has the staff to come back to the city on an annual basis and present to the Planning Commission and City Council, kind of the status of the plan, how much housing has been developed under the plan, and other key matrices that show how the plan is proceeding and at every opportunity for the annual review. It's an opportunity for the city council to to determine if there are updates to the plan that are needed. So a couple of other concerns. We heard about the design of the building. We heard a lot of concerns about privacy. Neighbors who live in single family residences or even two story residents were concerned about privacy and people looking into their backyard. We heard we heard that that's a concern. And what we've not talked about a lot, but we've touched on is that the land use element works in conjunction with another document called the Urban Design Element. And the purpose of the urban design element really is to encourage buildings that that actually step down to to match the adjacent buildings in the area. It essentially looks at graduated development intensity. I think you've heard us talk about ensuring that there is transitions between higher density uses and lower intensity neighborhoods. So all of these concepts are considered in the urban design element. And the goal and the objective of the element is to really look at neighborhoods and land uses from a much broader perspective, to look at them from a 3-D perspective, not just the the building itself, but how the building looks, how it's situated on the lot with the idea to really make sure that residences privacy are respected to the extent possible. To this point, we have policies and standards in the urban design element that addresses how the two buildings adjacent to each other, particularly of different densities and intensities, how the windows align so that you avoid direct line of sight into your neighbors windows. We also look at things like other building elements and ways to to screen the adjacent uses. And we can do that through things like landscaping, access to where the positioning of the site of the building on the site, where the front door is located, where the parking is located, and other other design features to minimize privacy issues. So the other one is how we manage height and making sure that we look at height appropriately. That was a really significant concern that we heard. So what I wanted to talk about really briefly is how the the urban design element accomplishes transitions between the different land uses, and it does it through a variety of tools. Some of those include step backs, looking at the overall quality of the site planning and also buffers between land uses. And that's done through looking at the various place types. Each of the place types that is that are identified in the plan have a series of of different standards. And what you'll see in the urban design element is that it's really designed to respect the situation or the location in which it's located. We appropriately want to make sure that as you transition from land from one type of land use, like a single family neighborhood into an apartment building, that those issues are being addressed. We look to make sure that the taller buildings are on the corridors and the lower scale buildings, of course, like a single family residence that they're on the the local residential streets. So again, we pay attention to things like the height of the building, like the massing of the building, and, of course, the building intensity. And I mentioned other things like measures that really produce a very thoughtful, well-designed building. And we look at that on a site by site basis. So it's not just something we look at on a broad scale, but on a property by property basis. Okay. A couple more just good neighbor policies we encourage. We talked early about this but encouraging buildings that step down to match the buildings. You can see. In this sketch here, it gives you an idea of how that's accomplished. You can do it through the the setbacks, the distance between the building from an adjacent building on the lot. There you can see the garage of the adjacent building, how you have a setback there. And you can also see how the rear of that building is stepped down. So that's just one example of tools that we use. But again, we talked earlier about landscaping. You can do things like landscaping to screen the building and you can also use window placement. Again is another design feature. And that's just again, we are very sensitive when projects come through the review process to look at the detail on all of these things. Cracker boxes, how we realize and acknowledge that the cracker boxes that happened about 20 or so years ago, they were absolutely a mistake on the city's part. Those those properties were a zone in a very, very short timeframe. And there was very little design that occurred on those buildings. What I what we're here to say today is that the the land use element and the urban design element that we just talked about features in both of those documents will assure that the cracker box phenomena will never happen again in the city. And what I'd like to talk about are some of the things that are specifically in the both the urban design element, the land use element, and, of course, in the city zoning code that will address those issues. First of all, they now have parking standards. We know that many of the cracker boxes that were built were built without adequate parking. So, again, new development that comes in under this land use element would be required to provide parking on site. They would also be required to provide appropriate setbacks again, based upon the the location of the site and what's around it. They would also be required to provide appropriate open space, both private open space for each of the units, as well as common open space on the site, and also just an appropriate level of design review. The city has a site plan review committee that reviews in great detail all of the the design features of the building, the architecture of the building, the building materials and that site plan review committee is comprised not only of the planning staff, but the Public Works Department who looks at a project for traffic impacts. We also have the police department who looks at the buildings for security and design design ways to have the design of the building prevent crime. So it's a very well-thought out and a very comprehensive review of all design features. And most importantly, the idea is that in single family areas, it's most important that we protect single family areas, and we want to make sure that there is the opportunity for for growth, for residential properties everywhere, and that where we do have multifamily developments that they're compatible with the adjacent land uses around them. Non-conforming properties. We talked about this one a little earlier. I think you've probably heard the term, but legal non-conforming status is a status that's created when a project is built. If it's built according to code at the time it's legally permitted, it can become legal non-conforming if the code changes or if one of the development standards in the code changed. And because of the age of the city, we have a lot of properties that were built, but they are no longer conforming either because the code, the zoning has changed and it's no longer permitted or one of the standards have changed. So the standard of legal non-conforming properties is that they are very strongly, highly protected by by law in the city's code and they may be continued or maintained as long as they are maintained and not abandoned. So once a structure is built, if it has a legal non-conforming status, it's protected. And at no time could the land use element or any other city ordinance or document require an existing legal non-conforming structure to conform to the to the land use element. So even if the land use element is adopted and it changes the standard, any existing legal non-conforming structures are protected. However, the reason you do not want to create a land use element that creates new legal non-conformity is because several things happen when a building becomes legal non-conforming. First of all, it automatically devalues the property because property values based upon the highest and best use. First, it gets a lower property value. Second, because investors in a property need to have a rate of return or a certain amount of return on their investment. There's not necessarily an incentive for them to invest in the property, to maintain it or to keep it up to the character of the area in which it's located. And we would very much like to see all property in the city well-maintained. And when they become legal non-conforming, they tend to be blighted. And we see we've seen in many, many cases where they just suffer from disinvestment. So we'd like to not create additional opportunities for non-conforming properties. Tom talked a little bit about overcrowding and I think we're running down here. Overcrowding and the impact on business from overcrowding. We talked about 12% of the city being overcrowded. And what that means is 12% of the housing units in the city are have more than one person per bedroom or per room of the structure, and that excludes the kitchens and the bathroom. Current overcrowding is unacceptable. It deteriorates. It leads to a deterioration of the quality of life in the neighborhood, not only in the house itself, where it occurs, but also to the general neighborhood. And it also, we've found that it affects the quality of life of residents who live in overcrowded conditions. It affects health generally, health, safety and welfare of those individuals. It also leads to parking issues and it also it contributes to deterioration in areas where there's overcrowding. So we'd essentially like to minimize the amount of overcrowding that occurs by providing additional units and redevelopment of areas where there is overcrowding actually leads to additional opportunities for housing . And we talked earlier about it addressing the parking impacts as well. So I'd like to address one last concern and I'll turn it back over to Tom. Is the loss of we've heard concerns about the loss of council authority. There has been a suggestion that by adopting this land use element that the city, that resident or the city council would lose the authority over development projects. I'd just like to be clear that the land use element makes no changes to the current level of City Council review of any development project. The zoning code actually lays out how the development process works and that is not being changed. And there are several levels of development review for a project and it really depends upon the scope of the project and the intensity of the project and where the project is located. But I'd just like to just briefly summarize, it could occur at the staff level of it's a ministerial project, which means only a building permit is required. It's typically done at the staff level, but it could also be heard by the zoning administrator, which is a public hearing. It could also be approved by the the Site Plan Review Committee, which is an interdepartmental review of all all of the city's reviewing authorities. It could also be approved by the planning commission or lastly, by the city council. And many projects actually have to go through several a couple of levels of review. For example, you can get or you can be required to have a site plan, review approval, as well as a planning commission approval. So what I'd like to say is the other factor related to the the level of review authority is also about the the program. e.R. We've heard concerns that adoption of a program er means that any development project will no longer be subject to sequel. And that is this absolutely not correct. Any project that is reviewed or approved under the land use element would continue to be subject to sequel requirements because even the EIA, even though it generally and broadly entitles the type of project it cannot look at and anticipate the very site specific impacts that would occur on a very specific location. So projects that get approved through the land use element on a very broad level would still be subject to sequel, and they would still be subject to all other, the other existing and current levels of staff review. So I'd like to oh, let me just give you one example here on a site that was could be a gas station that would like to convert or transition to to a commercial use. For example, that site would be required to do a phase one analysis or what we call the on it would be the sequel workup. It would include looking at the soils potentially because of the potential contamination, but it would also be subject to looking at potential traffic impacts. And depending upon the height of the building, it could also be asked to do a shade and shadow analysis. All of those would be standard requirements for a part of the square process for any new development. So with that, I'd like to conclude my comments and turn it back over to Tom to just say that we've heard the concerns. We feel that the land use element and the urban design element, as well as the city's current code and development review process, address the concerns that we've heard. But we're we are continuing to listen to your concerns. Thank you. Thank you very much, Linda. So I know that was a lot of information. This is a complex topic and it's we've had a lot of people really following this. So we wanted to spend some time, you know, kind of assembling the major questions, concerns that we hear out there. We've answered some of these in writing. We wanted to put these also in a PowerPoint. This PowerPoint will be available to everybody. It'll be on the register as part of the meeting minutes. So if anyone wants to go back and refer to it. And so I want to talk a little bit about the next steps and then we'll wrap up and we'll get to public input. So really what we're doing here tonight is an important night, but there's going to be a number of steps to the land use element even after tonight. So what we're here tonight is we as staff are recommending to you a series of maps, and we know that the council is going to be proposing some changes. And and we as staff support those. And and this is really a policy document that you as a city council needs to be comfortable with because it is the vision for our community. And so we're hopefully tonight getting those revisions and recommendations on the latest maps and policies and design standards. Then we will start the EMR process. We will draft and circulate the updated air there. It has been in the air with lots of information, but this will be updated to reflect what you've decided on tonight. And and for the approved land use element and the urban design element, we also have a separate planning effort that will begin shortly thereafter about climate adaptation and action plan, and that will be our very first climate change policy document. We will then start with the zoning and the zoning is going to take several years to do the first step. The zoning is really granular. It gets down to parcel by parcel and so and block by block. And so the uptown zoning implementation will be the first pilot that we do where we're implementing the general plan. Updated North Long Beach. That's going to include extensive community outreach to guide development and land new standards for the neighborhoods. And then we'll do citywide zoning implementation so that we expect to be about a five year time frame. We're going to use the uptown implementation results to develop the zoning districts and how we do community input and outreach and conduct all the technical, technical analysis and studies to inform those districts and requirements. And so we've reached the end of staff report. I do want to thank everyone for their patience. And what we're going to do now is we're going to receive public testimony. We'll turn it over to the fire marshal who will help us guide having everyone come up and give their thoughts. The City Council. Then we'll have an opportunity to discuss the maps district by district for any changes. And then we would recommend adopting and approving those revised maps and direct us to start recirculate the air. And so with that, we will turn it back over to the mayor. Okay. Thank you very much. We're going to go ahead and begin the the the public comment part of the hearing. Just as a reminder, our fire marshal who's here is going to kind of guide the the the roads are going to speak first. And just as a as a reminder for folks, the council will be addressing a variety of of ideas that they have within their own district. So that will happen. And so I know that a lot of the comments might be reflected in some of that. And so I just encourage us to be certainly everyone gets their time, but the more expeditious that we can be, the better. We do have some folks that are outside. We don't have a huge group outside, but there is a group outside. I want to make sure they have an opportunity to speak as well. And so if you're outside, you will get a chance to do public comment. Also, I can just ask, are some of our members of our fire team, I do see about ten open seats, maybe, maybe more. If there's some folks that want to come in, we're welcome to bring them in as we go. And if you're able to make room for those as you speak. All right, if you want to head head out, you're welcome to do that as well. So folks that are on the outside can be in. And that's really up to you, your decision as well. And so with that, we will begin the public hearing on the public comment piece, and I'll let the fire marshal begin lining folks, folks up. Whoever wants to speak in this room, stand up and then we'll just line up up the stairs here. All righty. Good evening, mayor and city council members. I'm Robert Fox and I'm the executive director of the Council of Neighborhood Organizations. You probably all have met me. I want to thank, first of all, the council for listening to us in the community. Particularly, I want to thank the mayor who's been very helpful and allowing us to have roundtable meetings for every council managed district. And we did get a sense of each council district. And it was great participating with the council members on that. That being said. We've sent copious notes to you from those meetings, so I hope you all had time to review those because we specified it for per person's dialog. You know, we didn't change anything. We took really accurate notes on that. That helps, I think, give you a sense of each district in our statement about what we would like to support. Number one, we realize that probably this is not going to be received and filed. So we have to move forward in a comprehensive and a strategic manner. Kono would like to support the mayor's vision. He's very specifically outlined it as developing the downtown of the city of Long Beach and perhaps along the blue line up to Pacific Coast Highway at first. And we've had a really good run at the downtown development and we support the idea of the City of Long Beach being a great city, particularly in the downtown area. So if you want to build the Emerald City, we can call it the Sapphire City were totally in support of that. So because I like the blue lights, I don't know about you guys, but the blue lights work. That's really great. We've heard from some council members that perhaps we should do a five year plan rather than a 20 year plan. It's nice to organize a very long vision. But, you know, 20 years ago, as was pointed out, we didn't have the Internet, we didn't have Amazon, we didn't have cell phones, for God's sake. So our lives have changed so significantly and it seems like history is accelerating. Time just goes so quickly and our technology changes so quickly. So when we're setting a plan for 20 years, it may be an overreach in terms of practicality. So we'd like to suggest, going along with one of our council members, that maybe a five year plan is appropriate or less with which we could we adopt and review . If we are going to do that, we suggest that the land use element would be smaller in scope rather than larger in scope. And we can do that today with every count semantic district, you know, asking for downsizing or, you know, height reductions as appropriately asked for by their constituents. So I think we can work with each other on that, and I hope that we will come to that dialog together if we are doing a five year plan, I don't think it's possible to put a moratorium on the neighborhoods, but I'd really like to support the mayor in doing the downtown research. Thank you. Mr. Fox, can I have one more statement? We'd like to suggest that the Architectural Design Commission founded by the mayor, we understand that staff will do all the review, but we'd like to keep that. Like the Planning Commission goes to city council and then you vote on it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Please. Good eating. Jamal Los Altos. What a difference seven months makes. I would like to thank the mayor for his vision in making sure that the neighborhoods and the residents were heard. And I'd like to thank our Councilmember Joe Super now, who knows everything that is needed in the fort. Thank you very much. I just want to mention a few things about the staff's presentation and the neighborhood's kind of rebuttal to some of the stuff, because I went to every single one of the meetings lasted as long as all the meetings. So a couple of things I noticed Tatum, we asked her in the meetings about the vision of equity and affordability and the economy, and she specifically told us her and some of the other presenters in the town halls that the Lou does not address affordability. That is basically up to the developers on what they're going to develop. And I know the mayor has mentioned, you know, he's he knows their market rates. You know, we're going up all over downtown. The other thing is the incentives for it, for affordability are basically the the state incentives. The other thing is about the traffic on the air. The draft does say if the blue is put in, there will be worse traffic will traffic get worse without the Lou? Yes, but the air draft, the air specifically says and it lists the it listed all out what's going to happen at which intersections. And also the last thing I want to talk about real quick is the the impact fees she the development staff did acknowledge in some of the meetings that yes, this is a one time impact fee and it doesn't cover salaries over a long period of time, which is why we don't use the port or the on the coastal money for, you know, for police and fire and things like that. But so I just wanted to make sure that when we're talking about the development speak, that we have some issues with some of the things the way they did. And the other thing is they constantly are saying inside family neighborhoods, there's no impact. However, our neighborhoods are everything adjacent to, across the street from and all of those single family neighborhoods. And that was our issue, was the development going in around and next to we understand that the founding neighborhoods that the development wasn't supposed to be inside. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Melanie Speaker, please. Tell everyone I didn't prepare a speech today, but I just like to thank personally councilmember pearce. Councilwoman price, councilmember supernova has mongo the mayor and vice mayor richardson for attending our roundtable, especially the mayor for helping us arrange them. I'm seeing these signs that say I support an inclusive. So so do I in support an inclusive value. But the neighborhoods don't feel like. They're included in the process. And that's the entire problem. When we I think it was in the. Fourth Council District meeting, you said that this was the worst rollout. The mayor said this was the worst rollout. Was it ever or. Right. So and then you said, but the leadership has changed. Well, I understand that. And a lot of people we like Tom and we like Linda, but we still don't feel like we have we're a part of the process. It's still the same. You know, we've kind of feels like it's an imposition. So I think that we could use this as an opportunity to. Really work on our community outreach as an example. And the eighth District Ray gave. Which organized some people. Together, and we put together a map on Google Maps. It's interactive. You can actually see what is there currently to compare it with what is. Proposed to be changed on Street View. I mean. Yeah, the problem is that we started from a plan coming. Down on to us instead of something coming out of the communities. So I'd also like to I just want to submit this map to. The Councilman Austin, because this is this is a changed. This is what the people from the eighth District wanted. And the actual, you know, the the word document. I think Ray will also submit that. But this is just a visual example. Thank you. And you can give that to the to the caucus here. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Carrie Sharpe. I'm a 33 year member of the fifth District. And thank you again, mayor and council. And I want to quote from today's press telegraph. Thank you. Eric Garcia from your article. We all know that Long Beach has mostly built out and that our neighborhoods like Los Altos, which is my neighborhood, Wrigley Bluff Park, make our Nate, our city great. We are committed. To. Keeping them residential and suburban. I'm holding you to your word, Mayor Garcia. I'm hoping that the council does as well. The Fifth District has a very successful and very symbiotic relationship with our four commercial corridors and surrounding community residences. And they are easily at least. 95% in. Occupancy. I'm losing access to these through additional traffic and losing. Access to any of these. Well, just like water, be a path of least resistance. What will lead us into Lakewood. Shopping centers or down to Miles, down to Orange County? We really don't want that to happen. We have a very. Fragile relationship between our commercial corridors and our community. We also have nowhere to build in the fifth. We have very little blight. I know. We're lucky. I'm sorry. We are lucky. There are very few empty offices. There's less than three empty lots. Destroying businesses to build residential units is just wrong. Any official that puts money before people does not have a place in Long Beach. Council members, please. Thank you. Council members, if you and your heart and your head have at least 1%, 1% that say, I wish I. Could have done one thing. I wish I could roll. Back one procedure in this process and said, maybe I just wish I had another chance to have a little more outreach. Then you have a flawed product. That is coming out in the way of a loop map. Just 1% of you that says it's not ready. Then please, I urge you reconsider. Roll it back. If indeed that is not going to be the case, I'm asking for a second possibility. Would you please consider putting the rest of the city that is still in chains into a more appropriate time? And going forward with the. Lou in the projects. That have already had approval from the Planning. Commission, the city. As well as yourselves. That's another option. And finally, at the very, very least, I urge. You and beg you, please do not put this in 22 years worth of project. Please take a five year with an option to modify them and whenever we need to. I know it's a lot more work and Miss Tatum was quoted by that in the Long Reads report. I know that, but it's worth it to get it right. Thank you. Thank you very much. One thing I. Just want you to. Remember. Long Beach can also me. For those of you that are going to have to be voted. On this year and into. Year, Long Beach are. People who live at the beach. With very long. Memories. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Carelessly in my address is on file and you're a hard act to follow. So I did send in a letter on SB 35 and a clause that says that under the streamlined process, a developer must build to the highest density allowable in that land use designation. And I did find in our elderly two or three different places that could be used to define the highest density allowable. I did hear the answer that once again, the place types are going to rule. I sure hope that's true, and I hope that we don't confuse it by having multiple places that someone could argue with what the greatest density is. The premise of this entire project to me is flawed. The math. The math in it that we're going to add housing units that only works to solve a population problem if the population is stable. If we pile more people on top of people. And we and we're going on. And the only way it works is if they don't multiply otherwise in the next in the next time frame, we're going to have exponential growth. So the solution to me is not a solution. Density has negative impacts. And you went over them very well. You did. Here is traffic, parking and crime are the three I hear the most often. And then the infrastructure issues of sewers, water, gas, electrical, police, fire and schools are also brought out there regularly. We can build up or we can build out. That's another option. The assumption that people want to live here because they were born here I think is also flawed, that people want to live where they work. Well, maybe they do, but there's other things, other pressures. There's people like I know that I moved here because my family's here. I was working by L.A.X., so I did that nasty commute for ten years because my support structure is here in Long Beach. That's why people live where they live. People live where they live because one of them works at L.A.X. and the other one works in Orange County and they pick a spot in between. So making an assumption that we have to create units because everyone who lives here or everyone who works here wants to live here is just not right. Our mobility element that we're going to give up cars, work, bike and bus, I mean, that's ridiculous. You know that. The weakness in this is that it is not enforceable. You know, so putting that up as a solution is not realistic. We need project level ideas and we need to deal with with the traffic issues. I do want to speak for I don't know if I have time on this, but I do want to speak for one moment on the relationship. We would like to see that when we have someone that we've elected, that they're going to listen to us, that when we say we don't want density, that you're going to remove it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. I'm going to be very brief here. My concern is by adding this density without the appropriate infrastructure in place. It's going to create huge problems for the city of Long Beach. I was raised in San Francisco, lived there the majority of my life. It is a mess over there. You have the best transit in California and people still drive their cars everywhere. If you live 40 miles outside of that city, it takes 3 hours to get to work. And people don't park their cars because you have good transit. Some people can't take public transit. Some people don't want to. It's still a problem. And right now in Long Beach, where I live in the fifth District, you can drive down Bellflower Boulevard and run into 30 potholes. And this is after Measure eight. So why why are those things? They're not being fixed now. How are they going to survive high density? I don't think they will. So it's a concern for the people who live there. Smart growth is nice, but not if it's not smart for the residents, the people that have to live with it. And we do. So please listen to our concerns. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. And just as a reminder, please. Please say your full name at the start. Just for for the record. And I appreciate the length of your of your comments. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Well, that was my wife, Danielle and Diana Ramirez. Yeah. And I'm Dave for the mayors. So. Mine's going to be really short here the first, second, third. No engagement, no eye contact from any of the people here. It's like they're going through the motions, like they're down here reading and, you know, instead of listening to the people , you should have eye contact. We represented all you people as citizens of Long Beach. You're here. You're here to represent our benefit of living in the city. But there's a lack of engagement. I mean, I'm a businessman. I work for my company 35 years. And any time we have a meeting like this, there would be eye contact engagement. But one, two, three, super. Now he look sometimes. Stacy, Roberto, every case. You know these two guys. But it's to me, it's ridiculous. It's like we're here doing some kind of go through the motions and that you're not really want to hear the real concerns of what's going on here. So I'm done. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Sherry Kropp, and I'm the superintendent for Los Alamitos Unified School District. I'll be really brief because I can see there's some pretty urgent topics in your chambers tonight. So I realize the voters have spoken and they have passed measure and then for medical marijuana. But it has come to our attention that there is one being planned 0.6 miles from Los Alamitos High School, which is. Mama. This is this is only on the public hearing that's in front of us. It's not on any other items. I appreciate that and thank you. I'll be. Back. Okay. Thank you very much. No problem. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I will not be brief. I will take my 3 minutes. Good evening, Honorable Mayor, City Council members. My name is Michel Molina and I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you tonight. I'm an active member. Of the Long Beach community, having worn many hats as a long time resident of both the first and the third districts. The property owner, business owner, former educator, member of the Board of Governors of California State University, Long Beach. And I also serve as Commissioner on the city's Economic Development Commission. However, tonight, I address you on behalf of the downtown Long Beach Alliance board of Directors. The downtown Long Beach Alliance is a nonprofit organization that represents the business and property improvement districts in downtown. And while the organization's focus is on downtown, which is currently zoned under the downtown plan, I'm here tonight because we're all impacted by the housing crisis. With this in mind, the board of directors approved at our February meeting to actively engage the city on the potential negative outcomes of not planning for adequate housing needs. After reviewing the findings presented by Beacon Economics, an independent economic research firm, the Housing Needs Assessment Report produced by Beacon, evaluated Rina housing projections and found that the current use maps as drafted did not adequately address the roughly 28,000 housing units needed. Moreover, while Rina projections focus on population growth and overcrowding, they did not account for workforce and job growth within the city and our surrounding communities. Taking the missing factor into account, Beacon's forecast of needed housing units significantly increased threefold. For this reason, the land use element debate, which has largely been framed as a housing density issue, must also be viewed in terms of economic impacts on the vitality and livability of Long Beach for the next 20 years. Last year, City Council approved the Economic Blueprint ten year vision for economic growth through the city. It was a forward thinking document that sought to create an inclusive economy for all. However, without hopes of housing to support obscene job growth, these policies and recommendations outlined become irrelevant because the city will not adequately planning, will not be adequately planning for employment growth. As our president and CEO Craig Cogen wrote in Sunday's Press Telegram. It's imperative we utilize this opportunity to plan for all of our future housing needs. We have an incredible opportunity to plan for a future that includes all segments of our community. I trust that tonight each council member will contribute to a citywide perspective on solving the housing crisis, allowing for reasonable compromise that does not impede on our current quality of life or prosperity of future generations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is David O'Neill. I'm a longtime resident of the city of Long Beach. I've also voted in every election since I was legally old enough to vote. I would initially like to state that I'm against increasing the City of Long Beach's density, especially in the city's fourth and fifth districts. I urge you to receive the land use element and file it. On June 28th, 1983. Former members of this Planning Commission. Succumb to the rhetoric of housing advocates and help put in place some of the most disastrous regulation changes this country's this city has ever seen. Excuse me. In the decade that followed, according to the Long Beach Press telegram, the Long Beach Police Department and the United States Census Bureau, the poverty rate had risen 69%. Gang activity increased, property values had dropped, and the violent crime rate had had risen to a whopping 112%. Many proponents of the land use element have attempted to dismiss these inconvenient truths by pointing out that it's irrelevant, since no new construction can take place within residential areas and building standards will be improved. My reply to them is that moving this exercise in poor planning from two doors down to only a block away in my case and increasing the quality of the structures is of no comfort whatsoever to those of us who are raising young kids. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Diana Logins. I've only got a couple of these, so I'm going to try to show you these pictures. I hope you can see them. This is a prime example of a beautiful craftsman that is overpowered totally by a three story cracker box. This is exactly what happened in District two, District four, and some of the downtown areas, unbridled development. This is the kind of thing that happens. And then I will echo the last speaker where along with a huge amount of density and this is why it's going to be so important that we don't overdo this because you have crime, you do have trash, you do have graffiti. It just goes on and on. I know I lived in District two and I moved to District five to get away from that. I spent 20 years as a neighborhood watch captain. I had my life threatened. I had my car vandalized. I could go on and on and on, trying to clean up a neighborhood that was overly dense with cracker boxes, very, very concerned about what that density can bring. I'm not saying that density brings up for everyone. That's just not true. But at the same time, it's the propensity is there. The statistics are there. You just have to pay attention to what happened 20 years ago. And, you know, this thing, this hugely increased density, that's what it's going to create. So I urge you to to. It's okay to I mean, it's fine to grow, but let's do it responsibly. This is I don't believe that this value is a responsible measure. And it does need to does need to be adjusted and done responsibly. So I hope that does happen. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Mr. James. And the speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Marlene Simonds. My home is on 518 Walnut. I'm a third generation owner and a native of Long Beach. I'm also secretary of NABA, a North Alamitos Beach Association. This is second District neighborhood bordered by Alamitos, Cherry, fourth and seventh. We Inaba understand the need for housing both affordable and market rate. We understand the city needs revenue. For example. Now that brick and mortar. Retail is shrinking. But this plan has shown in the December latest map is a heavy handed paintbrush. It paints all the streets and never the same as if our neighborhood is comprised of all tear down homes. For the past decade, our association has worked to beautify and keep neighbors safe, especially on Nebraska and Walnut, where many of our homes have been carefully restored and cared for by owners. These trees are now targeted for four story height in the latest plan. Mainly tonight, I'd like to make the case for keeping walnut between fourth and seventh in at least the east side of Walnut, at a minimum, with its small lots at the minimum height of the maximum three storey height. While that is also one of the narrowest streets in the city, if you look at the December L we map walnut between fourth and seventh is proposed for four story, but it's a maximum three storey height to the north and south and east adjacent neighborhoods, all shown as pale yellow for founding neighborhoods. Even on seventh Street, west of Walnut to Orange and fourth. West Orange proposed site has been reduced to three, while that between fourth and third is three storey two farther south. Okay. I know it'll be difficult to see this from where you're seated, but this is photo shows five adjacent restored homes on Walnut. We call it bungalow row. Our block looking east is designated as a founding neighborhood, except the block on Walnut, which is now designated for four story, which becomes a destruction zone. But tonight, I'm also seeking to ask you to take into account Nebraska Avenue's homes as part of NABA as a three storey height limit. But my main plea tonight is to reconsider walnut between fourth and seventh. At a minimum, the east side, making it a three story height. So it matches the adjacent founding neighborhoods, matches the three story corridors at fourth and seventh right there, and stays a valuable part of a traditional founding section of homes. I thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Darrell Golden. I'm a long term resident of Long Beach. I live on the west side and I'm also the current president of Westside Homeowners Neighborhood Association. With that, growth should be slow. The land use element does not give a limit on where we are going, how much growth. It just seems that we need to produce approximately 2300 new units a year to keep up with growth. But where is the limit? You know, if we have a 20 year program and if you see that if you multiply to 20 by 2 to 3, you write around 90,000 units in 20 years. Is that enough? Where is enough with each additional resident? It includes more pollution. We don't even know where our pollution levels are. How is the negative impacts of growth or not clearly identified to the limit of the 20 year plan? So the plan is incomplete. The premises are not sufficient to make a good decision, in my opinion, and I'm not going to take much of your time . But I just wanted to make sure you understood, Stuart, that we have to have a limit. It's just like a bathtub filling up with water. At some point it will overflow and we need to know what that is. As the residents of the city, we need to know where our limit is, what can we do within that limit? But once we reach it, we also know what we have to do and we have to plan to that limit to a soft landing. I contribute the last 75 years of the economic developments in this country, the slowing down from the great buildup of World War Two to bring this country's economic situation to a soft landing in Long Beach, need to plan for the same thing. We have borders all around us. We have ocean at our back and everything else is boarded. So it only growth can happen. Here is up. Do we want to eliminate single family residence? No, I hope not. That's something I like about Long Beach. The basis of a single family, residential neighborhoods. Everything else is at stake. Right now, we don't know where we are going. We've taken a trip with no destination. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Next week a please. My name is Candace Mead. I live in Wrigley. I'm against Chloe. Welcome to the selling of Long Beach. This, for you is about profit, not people. It's about destroying neighborhoods and our quality of life. The heights in these maps destroy our privacy. In the sanctuaries. We call home to sell you shortens our already shortened life spans, especially those of us who live in the diesel death zone. All for a developer's buck. All for a developer's buck. City staff reported housing vacancy rates have risen and continue to rise substantially. In your materials. Census stats indicate families without children are increasing. We saw that tonight and families with children are decreasing. Long Beach residents do not need this density. The value has nothing to do with affordable housing. Even city staff has iterated that IT neighborhood meetings. The lobby. Is being marketed as just. That affordable housing for your kids. Following the data trends, it will be more expensive housing and it won't be for your kids. If you have any. Famed architect Frank Gehry recently talked about housing in our area. He said In the commercial realm, you don't see a lot of good work right now. Most of the money for commercial development in L.A. is coming from China, and it's very overpowering. It doesn't have an esthetic mandate that comes with it. It has a commercial mandate, period. It's short sighted. But most of these buildings are quick built, resold and turned over. So there's no sense in the culture today of long term ownership or pride. Gary said, I think it's unethical when you're building things like that. You're creating space in places that affect the lives of many people, and yet you don't have a sense of responsibility to the. Nuances or feeling. Gary talked about humane environments, buildings with humanity and scale and love in them. The humanity before you tonight, encouraging you to preserve the feeling that they have living here. Is right before you. Frank has some advice for politicians and developers. Well, I think they are ethically responsible for a better built environment. I don't think they see it that way. Everything is against it because nobody cares. They should take the time to understand what is available, not just let people come in, but third rate developments that make the city uglier and uglier. I don't think elected officials think about that. Not only does this luy ruin neighborhoods and take away our quality of life, it is blatantly, environmentally and socially unjust. Despite the changes in the maps, the yellow youI is literally waiting for my neighborhood and me. Thank you very much. Next week please. Gentrification. I think that's what. This elderly is about. We'll be building housing and developments in other areas of the city so that we can move low and moderate income residents to these new developments, leaving open the more valuable area of downtown to the developers and the investors to make more high income housing. I hope that if that come just true, that we on the long term, we will hold. Everybody who is responsible for. That accountable equity. That's the buzzword. I'm calling for information equity. If Mr. Modica can talk about the decrease in the acres of density, why are we not given the information of what the increase in the acres of density are? I deserve and we deserve information equity. I want to know what the increase in the acres of density are on the Louis in August and what they are currently that you're voting on. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please come forward. Hello, Joe Weinstein. President of citizens about responsible planning. Caap. We sent you a letter. I will summarize some of our concerns. Our prime recommendation is not to change the existing land use element until you can prove to the public that. The changes will be improvements. Now, you heard the last speaker. After all this hullabaloo, we still have no direct comparison maps. Just maps showing the new but nothing to show the old. In other words, we do not know what the exact proposed changes. That shouldn't be too hard to produce, but it hasn't happened yet. So for the time being, you should just keep the present land use element which has served despite all the changes that were mentioned. It was it was noted that the community is concerned about what will homeowners, residents be able to do about new developments. It was not correctly stated that our only concern is about sequel violations. Our concern, which was not mentioned, is what is the impact of the new state legislation. We have to know a little more about that. Before we can say this. Proposed new land use settlement is such a great idea. But the big problem with the land use element that has been proposed is that the premise is totally faulty, as a previous couple of speakers noted. It's hard to say this is this an unwelcome truth? But you cannot plan for ever more density and ever more population in Long Beach or for that matter, anywhere on Earth. And call it sustainability. Pretend that you're a sustainable city or that you're aiming at sustainability. What you at least have to do is with every new measure that will allow increased density and population, you are putting in an equally compelling measure that is going to discourage long. Term. Population increase. And unfortunately, we haven't seen that yet from Sacramento or in this alleyway, but that is a requirement. Otherwise, this whole thing is really an attempt to fool ourselves into disaster because the. The population problem. It's more than just a matter of emitting more greenhouse gases and making the climate bad. Extra population increases every kind of stress on earth, finite systems and extra population means ever more misery when those things fail. More details in the letter that I sent you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, sir. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Daniel, president of Bixby Park. I also work in downtown Long Beach, lived in Long Beach six years. I'm not sure what city I'm in, though, tonight. I thought this was a city that embraces diversity. I thought this is a big city with a big international port. One of the most diverse populations on earth. But listening. I would think that I live maybe in Pasadena or Irvine. I actually heard someone from the so-called Council of Neighborhood Organizations say, Let's emulate Pasadena, let's emulate Santa Barbara. Are you kidding me? You can put those two cities together and you still get about half the population in Long Beach. The wealthier, they're smaller. It's totally inappropriate to compare Long Beach to Santa Barbara and Pasadena. I think that comparison shows just how out of touch some of these folks are. I'm not sure if they've been, you know, west of Cherry Avenue in 20 years. You know, reasonable people reasonable people can disagree about how high a building should be in a commercial quarter. Three stories. Five stories. Should a go over here? Should go block that way. Okay. We can disagree about those things, but the rhetoric has been so dishonest from this group. I've been told things like this. No kidding. Busses are not mass transit. How upside down do you have to be to tell somebody busses are not mass transit? Okay. I was told that. Hey, we speak for the majority of the city. Well, 60% of the people in the city a renters. I was at one of these forms. I saw any renters in the room. A couple council staff raised their hands in me. Nobody else was a renter in the room. I had somebody tell me, Oh, it's three people sharing a bedroom. What's the big deal? And then 5 minutes later say, I don't want to walk two blocks every time I park my car. So, you know, I walk two blocks every time you park your car. So somebody should have three people in one bedroom so you don't have to park too far away. This should really go without saying, you know, parking not a human right, not a constitutional right. And let's say when we talk about parking, let's be honest, what you really mean is you want free parking on your street in front of your house. Yeah, right. But guess what? Excuse me. I'm speaking. Thank you. I'm speaking. Thank you. Everyone gets a chance to have their. Parking is not a human right. Your ocean view is not a human right. And to live in the city that you had when you were 12 years old is not a human right. Housing is a human right. And so I want to ask this council, please adopt the L'ue. It needs more density, not less. Look, population increases. City does not grow. Do the math. That means more density. There's no other way to do that matter than building a wall around the city. If you don't pass it tonight, you're kicking the can to the next council. So I just would ask you, this is not the majority of the city. They're the folks who maybe have are lucky and can be here tonight. But 60% of people are renters. They have an interest in density. Please speak for them and pass the you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, please. Our next speaker will be from up top in the right short. Yes, ma'am. Hold on 1/2, ma'am. We want to make sure Mike's working. Is it working? Okay. Let's let let's let let them try it and see if it works. Let's watch it. Pass the mike over and see if it works. I can hear a little bit. Go ahead. Try it. My name is Barry. Okay. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to go on the more speaker's road that you're working, Michael. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. My name is Raymond. I'm from the fifth District. I'd like to thank my councilwoman, Stacey Mango and the great staff at Development Services for for just doing a great job under the very tough circumstances. And everybody has done a great in returning a lot of my emails and helping me educate some of the residents. Okay. District five is a little bit different. I there's a lot of complaints that are going back and forth, but we are one of the districts that that was led later, districts that got entered into the city. And we have the luxury of getting some of the lessons learned and making our district a little bit differently so we could avoid some of the mistakes that were made in the other older districts. And I think we've done a good job. We got to kind of a hub and spokes way that we do things where all of our stuff that that we need is within a half a mile to a mile of where we where we go. So we're very happy with that. And that's one of the reasons why everybody's saying no density. I am not for having any additional density in the as it stands in my district, but I do know that is perfectly fine in other districts. I would like to. Yeah. No, I mean, if they want to if they want to do it, that's fine. I mean, that's what I'm saying. If they want to do it, fine. It should be. My recommendation is having each of the council members decide what they want to have, because I know that there's some issues on on Atlantic and in Long Beach Boulevard, you know, and we need to help that area. But one of the things I want to do is make sure that the council people are they vote for their own districts. One of the things I also noticed is that place tight boundaries on the maps. They keep shifting and I like to have it completely around the entire shopping center. The another thing that I like to have is the see here, I can throw that one out. There's a there are some additional elements that are relating that are going to be related to transit. And I think we're going to have them later on today. And I'd like to also have the city work with the with the Long Beach Transit start to try to mitigate some of the the things that are that are that could happen, the additional density. It could be massive. It could affect all actually the whole city. So those are some of the issues that we have. We've also had some issues with with outreach. I know. And I don't want to get into that sticky wicket there, but we really need to start working on that. I only got about 19 seconds left. I don't want to make this thing too radical. I'm very confident that Stacy Mungo's looking after our best interests, and I'm very confident things will go well with all of your districts. I wish you the best. Bye. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Peggy Kozlowski, and I live on ninth Street, just on the fringe of the Craftsman Village Historic District. I read the mayor's press telegram article today, and. I want I have a few quotes. One is, quote, If we don't act, the. State will act for us. Well, I don't think anybody wants that. The next part. I that caught my eye was. Quote, I have been a strong advocate of building. More housing up and down the Metro Blue Line corridor, especially affordable housing for seniors and working families. Well, I hear about affordable. Housing from everywhere, from Lou, supporters on Facebook to bloggers to the Long Beach progressives. Everybody's talking about it. But you know who isn't talking about it? The developers. And I looked at the density bonus. Only only one use of it since two 2012. The developers don't care about affordable housing. And I'm going to guess that it's because the tax incentives are dwarfed by the. Profits they can get from charging. High rents. I was at a. Class consciousness event last week where a young Cambodian man said that many in Cambodian. Town are resorting to homelessness because the rents keep doubling and tripling and. Doubling again. And I don't know if that surprised anybody. So my question is, is, is it going to happen or are we just. Going to keep strongly. Advocating for it? The second quote I wanted to refer to was. No one in the city, especially not me. Wants to see paraphrasing. Buildings built without adequate parking or infrastructure. I'm going to spare you my. Examples of parking problems. In my neighborhood. I'm sure you've heard everything by now, but let me just say that parking is. A continuing, absolute. Nightmare in my neighborhood. And. Okay, it's not a right. This is Southern California. Everybody is in love with their cars. Again. A lot of the people who are. On the other side like to write. Us off as. Aged, landed. NIMBY gentrifiers. I admit I am landed. I live on a narrow street with those little matching Spanish bungalows. There are quite a. Few of them around Long Beach. I don't even. Have a backyard, so I couldn't be a NIMBY. And thank you very much. Thank you very much, ma'am. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, Mayor Garcia, council members. My name is Lisa Vernon. I live in the third district and I don't live in I live near eighth and seventh. I'm sorry. I'm nervous. I live near seventh Street and Redondo and it's very diversified. It's not what the gentleman was speaking about. I live among the cracker box houses that were built in the eighties, and I also submitted some pictures. I'd like you to look at my views from my master bedroom and from my spare bedroom looking into windows. Two stories up, not three year and four and five and six and seven, but two stories up. And they can see in my room. And I also want to thank the council and the mayor for meeting with us. I spoke with. Susie Price and we spoke. About some of the areas on the newer maps, the DEC maps, and there's an area that stood three stories and I like it looked at and made to if possible. I have that map with me I'd like to hand in also about the man who spoke earlier in the overcrowding comments about the overcrowding. It says one person per room, not three people per room, the 1.5 people per room. My sisters shared a room when I was growing up. I'm middle class. I grew up middle class in the Bay Area. I came down to Long Beach to go to school. I stayed. I went back once, decide to come back and I'm here for good. I love my house. I put everything I have in my house. I live around traffic and parking and all the other issues in a dense neighborhood. I like my neighborhood. I'd like to keep it the same. I know we have to grow, but please grow slowly. Please make sure that we have water in our aquifers. Which I heard are depleted. And that's a real issue because if we don't have water, we can't share. We can't share a parking space. I don't I don't I really don't understand the loo. I got to the conversation a little late. I'm learning. It's complex. It's not about affordable housing. For those of you who don't know, 10% or less, as I understand, is about affordable housing. So please don't think of us as the enemy. Thank you. Thank you. I like your Hunger Games. I'm not sure that's a Hunger Games pin or not, but it looks like one. Oh, okay. It looks like. Look. It means think more in Latin. It's Ponce. Thank you. I felt like I was in The Hunger Games. So the thing is next. The next speaker. Please get the mic working. I believe so. Okay, thank you. But try this again. My name is Mary Kessler. My husband and I have made her home in Long Beach for the last 43 years. And we see that our city has some peculiar problems. And one of them, of course, is water. As the last speaker said, I think, sure that everyone on the council will tell you that that's only going to get situation's only going to get worse. The last thing we need. Is to bring more people in to distribute that water more thinly than it has been distributed in the. Years we've lived here. I've been through several droughts, but in the last droughts, we didn't have to compete with the delta smelt for the water. Yeah, it's. It's the last thing in the. World we need is to increase. The population right. Now. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Next speaker, please. Put on my specs so I can say good evening, Mayor Garcia and council members. My name is Michelle Aaron Eckhoff. I am the co-chair of Craftsman Village Historic District. And Daniel, if you're still in the room, you got me fired up because Crescent Village Historic District was established in 1992. It is one of the oldest historic districts in the city of Long Beach. It sits in the middle of one of the most dense areas in the city. Check your facts. Its its boundaries are seventh to 10th streets north and south and walnut and orange, east and west. It is diverse. I represent my community and all the communities around me. NABA AOC seven They are diverse. I do not live in a secluded neighborhood. Our neighborhood has a. And an excuse me. We are a neighborhood of homeowners and renters alike. Our neighbor has dedicated over 25 years in transforming our area into a safe and pleasurable place to live. I have in my hand petitions signed by 200 of the residents just in our historic district. The petition is asking our council to protect this historic neighborhood by limiting the height of new development on seventh and 10th streets between Alamitos. A little bit out of our neighborhood and a cherry to a maximum of a maximum of 2 to 3 stories. And to put in place a parking requirement, which it sounds like maybe that might happen as part of the club for two parking spots or 2.5 as before per unit. And by the way, these signatures are homeowners and renters, not just homeowners. In conclusion, Craftsman Village is not opposed to new development. In fact, we think new development new development will add a breath of fresh air to our 100 year old neighborhood. But development needs to be thoughtful. It needs to be respectful to the scale of the surrounding community, as well as the architectural heritage of the historic Seventh Street and 10th Street corridor. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next week, please. My name is Louise Ivers. I live at 1837 East Sixth Street. The podium just went down. And I might say that I live west of Cherry Avenue, and I also live in a diverse neighborhood. And I really resent some people saying things to us like, we don't want any development or any people of color because we live in a neighborhood that is dense already and has many people of color. So I represent the North Alamitos Beach Association and I live in Council District two. And while the Planning Commission has made some significant and beneficial changes to the land use element in our neighborhood, and I am one of the really fortunate ones who lives in the two block area that is still zoned for single family homes. The rest of North Alamitos Beach is still slated for four story apartment. NABA, which is our neighborhood association, is requesting that the height of future buildings on Walnut, Nebraska and Almond Avenues between fourth and seventh Street be lowered to two stories. And that all these narrow residential streets contain rows of turn of the century cottages and craftsman bungalows, the new estates that North Alamitos Beach as a, quote, founding neighborhood, unquote, and that historic buildings and the character of neighborhoods should be preserved. Yet our neighborhood will be subjected to some of the worst destruction in the city if four storey apartments are constructed throughout it. I am a survivor of the mid 1980s cracker box development, which nearly run North Alamitos Beach neighbor hopes that the city council will allow us to preserve our unique multicultural area by keeping the height limit in our neighborhood at two stories. In addition, I ask that the mayor appoint an architectural design commission that would oversee future developments throughout the city so that there will not be a repeat of the hideous cracker box developments looming over single family homes. New multi-unit buildings need setbacks from existing one storey structures, as well as gardens and green spaces to mitigate their density. And of course, I read all the signs that were up here on the screen, and it does say that the land use element encourages these types of construction, but it doesn't require them, unfortunately. How can you encourage a developer not to build a box? It didn't happen last time. The land use element does not specify that developers build affordable housing, and the cracker boxes did not have units for low income residents. So denser and larger in apartments, apartments will only displace more of those who live below the poverty line. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, Mayor Garcia, members of the city council and all my neighbors in all nine districts of Long Beach Beacon from fifth District. And I would like to request that you receive and file the L'UE for a number of reasons. First of all, I'm one of those dreadful NIMBYs who grew up with privilege that you've been warned about. I'm actually a kid from the housing projects of New York who, like a lot of other people in Fifth District who are homeowners, worked three jobs and went without in order to have a better home. When I talk to people on the streets before this came to the city council, I was hearing again and again, Wow, I don't want my kids. To go through what. I went through growing up in a dense neighborhood. I talked to a man from DICKERSON Gardens. I talked to a number of people who had taught school and had to really go without and sacrifice to get into this district and afford to be able to live in that area without a lot of density. I've noticed that with the elderly. Correct me if I'm wrong. Low density is currently 18 houses per acre. Yes, that's two and a half times as many houses as we have right now in Long Beach. We currently have seven houses per acre. Just think about right now where you're sitting. If suddenly another person and a half came in, crammed right on top of you. That's kind of what would happen. Now, we lived in fourth District before we moved to fifth about ten years ago. That had been increased in density by the growth of several condos before we left. Every day there was a helicopter overhead. Gunshots in the distance were a regular daily occurrence. I got threatened on the street for the offense of walking past somebody that no offense to anybody who's different from me in any ethnic way. I didn't happen to wear the same skin color that they did, and I would be anxious not to have that happen again. I would also love not to be robbed at knifepoint again, as I was when the density increased in the Los Angeles area, which was all about gentrification, by the way, as opposed to finding housing, which I would have to agree is an important consideration because unfortunately I have yet to see a developer who builds a house out of the goodness of his or her heart to accommodate people that do not have housing. That doesn't happen. Maybe, you know, some developers that do, but I don't personally know them. And the other concern that I'd like to raise here would be that of eminent domain, because sooner or later, if a developer thinks they can come into your city and they can build and make money, they're going to start looking at your property and say , Hmm, let's see if I can get that person to move out of here. And if I can't convince them by saying, Can I give you X for your house? I'm going to court and I'm getting an order and I'm saying you're going to move whether you like it or not. Thank you for listening. Thanks so much. Next speaker, please. I don't know where that's going to go. Okay. Well, I haven't been here in a long, long time. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening. City council members. I think I know most of you, and I hope I hope you come to a good decision for all of us. My name is Maria Norvell. And my address is on record. And I'm the vice president of Wana, which is the Wrigley Area Neighborhood Alliance, and I'm representing Wana. And my president, John Greenwood, is behind me. Eric. I was raised in Long Beach and I have always been a seventh district resident. We bought our home in 1970 in the Wrigley area. It's time again for me to come up and speak and tell you about Wrigley. Also, I have to talk about a former councilman that was always there for me. Thank God for our former councilman, Ricker Bensky. Shortly shortly after he was elected in office, he put a moratorium. Everyone and all those cracker boxes that were being built after they destroyed many, many Spanish beautiful Spanish homes in Wrigley. If he were alive today, he would be right here with us. Now, the people that live in those cracker boxes from Cedar Chesnut Eucalyptus and Magnolia Avenue. They have to come and park their cars on Daisy. There is no place to park on their street. They have no one. They have more than one car. The neighbors that live on Daisy can't even park in front of their homes from hill to PCH. Some of them have to park their cars on their front yards. They have asked me to come to help them if I could. I don't know what I can do, but I hope you guys can help them because they need help now. Now you want to put more density in our neighborhood. We don't need five, two, three storey high buildings on Pacific. Why do you want to take away our privacy? I also wonder if there was any explanation from Sydney city planners as to why they thought it would be acceptable. To have five, two, three storey buildings looming over single family homes. If Gore Verbinski was alive today, he would be standing next to me. Even if he was the sole vote on the council, he always took care of his constituents. Thank you, Mr.. Appreciate. Lastly, I wanted to thank you, Mayor, for having the round of meetings for all of us. Thank you so much, Marie. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Okay. Hold on. Let me have that. Okay. All right. My Michael. The screen. What? Good evening, Mayor Garcia and members of the city council. My name is Joan Greenwood. I reside at 2091 San Francisco Avenue in the Wrigley District of Long Beach since 1986. I thought it was been a long time since I've had to come up here and speak about a land use issue in this city. But but we have been discussing it among the water members since October of 2016. And the three words I would like to leave with you are. Maintain, evolve, transform, maintain. Wrigley, as one has two of the most diverse precincts in the entire country. We have no majority in Wrigley. We welcome all in Wrigley. It was designed with a diversity of housing, stock, single family, multi-story neighborhood serving commercial corridors of high quality. That's what we want as a founding neighborhood. What I don't understand is why founding neighborhoods and contemporary neighborhoods somehow fit in the same place type. They do not. So we want to maintain some of the unique characteristics of Wrigley. We want the land use element to reaffirm the equestrian overlay in Wrigley Heights as part of our cultural heritage. Second of all, evolving areas. Yes, Wrigley Village is evolving along Pacific Avenue. Willow Street is evolving. Again, a commune, a neighborhood serving walkable areas that serve the people who live in that district. When you build these high density, mixed use buildings, tall stories, the developers want chain groups going in there. They're more expensive and the local people can't afford it. Now, transformative, transformative place types are those like we have for downtown Long Beach and to a certain extent, North Long Beach. Let's focus our resources on those two areas and not transit oriented development in Wrigley. Wrigley and the Blue Line are not ready for transit oriented development. To do that right, you need approximately 50 acres of property. Otherwise, it's just overcrowding. We need to retain the area around the Willow Street Station as community commercial. That's our only supermarket in the area. That's where we have one of our two banks, which I stood in line behind ten people to use three ATMs on Saturday at 130 in the afternoon. We need these to stay in our neighborhood. And up at Wardlow, the same thing they want to put in high density residential. Well, we already have. That's where our senior housing is. That's where our convalescent homes are for our ill seniors. We would. Appreciate that. Okay. Just before our next speaker. So like like we do it all of our meetings with this many folks, we've got a bunch of folks outside and folks here, we've got about 5 hours of public speaking, stuff of public comment if everyone speaks and I know we want to have a chance to hear the council , so we're going down. We've had over 30 speakers. We're going now down to 2 minutes and we'll continue every one or 2 minutes. That's what I of the clock ago and then we'll go from there. I want to make sure folks from outside get a chance to speak. I will say there are some of you that are out there that I know have about 3 minutes worth of stuff to say that you really want to speak. And you've talked to me before about this. So I think you know who you are, but everyone else. 2 minutes, please. Thank you. Mayor Garcia, members of the council. And city staff. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm Brandi Claudio. I'm the executive director of the Los Altos Family YMCA. And I'm here in the fourth District, and I'm here on behalf of our 31 member Board of Managers. YMCA of Greater Long Beach Board of Directors with 47 members. And in addition to a representation of those individuals, there have been over 30 letters that have been sent to council, along with 143 signatures on a petition supporting our wise position to gain height zoning equity with our neighbors. After having served our community for over 50 years, our Los Altos. Y has every intention of continuing to do so. In years to come. This is what the community has told us that they want. The proposed L'appui maps on Bellflower between Atherton and Cal State. Long Beach offered drastic changes from 2 to 4 stories. The Why Rascals Property and the Corner building on Bellflower and Atherton are all currently zoned it to the proposed Louis Increase the Rascals property in the corner and the corner lot to four and left the way it to this height discrepancy makes no sense from a planning standpoint as unfair, unjustified and the inequality. Left our at a. Disadvantage. All our why is asking is to be treated equally with their neighboring parcels. We support the most recent changes which. Put all three parcels at three stories. This resolves in an inequity issue. We hope that this body and deed supports equity and. Fairness with the why matching the adjacent and corner parcel zoning height. We are great. We greatly value. Our councilman super NAS supportive. Our why as we have worked. To gain equity with our neighbors. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. First, thank you to everybody that's here tonight. It's really great to hear all these different opinions and views. I'm also with the Los Altos YMCA and thank you to the mayor and the member at the city council and city staff as well. I'm also here for the YMCA. My name is Lance KENYON. I've been a board member at Los Altos for about 20 years. I was born in Long Beach. I've lived. Here my entire life. I grew up in Los Altos y as a child, and my three children also grew up in the Y and experience the positive impact the Y makes on the community. Importantly, the Y has conducted a comprehensive professional marketing study which showed overwhelming support through the throughout the community for the Y increasing programs and services in the community. The proposed currently proposed L use MAP, which increases the height to four stories for the adjacent properties and leaves the Y at two stories is unfair and unjustified. It puts our Y to. Disadvantage of trying to provide the programs that the community has requested. So we're asking to be treated equally with our neighboring parcels. That's all we're looking for. We understand changes to proposed to be proposed tonight will do so. I hope that's the case. We hope the Council supports that. Equity and fairness with the YMCA matching those those adjacent parcels. Thank you for your consideration support and thank you to Councilman Supernormal for supporting us in hearing all our discussions. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I'm something. This, but that's fine. Good evening, esteemed council. Well, the mayor is absent, but I want to thank him for the roundtables and the beautiful letter that I received thanking me for my participation. What I want to impart on you all today is the gravity of the decision we're making this evening. You are all aware what this has to do with our future and really what's going to happen one way or the other on your decision. I am the president of the Alamitos Beach Neighborhood Association, and I'm here representing this beach area. The proposed density of density isn't really necessarily the problem. It's really the height and threat along this beach with the 16 stories on the north side of ocean and the improbable situation that I found myself in, the parking. Leads to. What I can only say is a disaster. I don't mean to be dramatic, but try finding parking in my neighborhood at late at night. It is impossible. What I'm asking for is language to protect parking in the future. I know it isn't there, and I know that it's supposed to be two spaces in residential areas. But we are facing a crisis over. There and further development at the low rate that it is now stands to crush people's spirits, as it were. Furthermore, I humbly request that you limit the height on the north side of ocean. The discussion we had earlier about not. Dramatic shifts in height, the 16 stories, the four. Stories on the map is appalling. We can't have monoliths dwarfing these four story units. And finally. Just know that my community is counting on you to make the right decision. And we really appreciate the time and energy you've taken to making our community a better place. Thank you so much and goodnight. Thank you. Speaker, please. Hi, I'm Gregory Moore, second district resident. There's a lot of demonization we're hearing about density. For anyone who doesn't know, the most population density in Europe, for example, is Amsterdam. And if you've ever been there, low crime, really nice place. So density is not is not inherently the problem. It's what we do with it. And I just I know this is an incredibly complicated issue. There's just one aspect of it that I'd like to touch on. In the presentation, we saw that the goal for new residential rate building is 1000 a thousand units per year. That we're not we're not there, but that in the last 2016, 2017, we've seen. A pretty. Substantial jump in that. And in the presentation we saw that the biggest bucket to use the term that Mr. Modica used is for the. The high height, the expensive kind of housing, which is almost double that of low income housing. One thing we didn't really hear much of is a number on the. Vacancy rates in what's being built. And I think that one thing we that it's if there's a lot of really expensive things that are being built and then we have. A 50% vacancy rates. I think it would be and I don't know that that and I'm just pulling that number out of the air. But one thing that was briefly mentioned was that we do have some. High vacancy rates and I hope you have the exact. Numbers not only of the vacancy rates of new units are being built, but vacancy rates by the type, because I'm sure that the lower income units are. Have a much lower vacancy rate. And that's the kind of that's those are the people that I hope. Don't get overlooked. In this process. And that might be a way to also maintain maintain a sort of steadier growth is if we put some kind of cap on the expensive units that are being built so that we can kind of gradually, more gradually. Move into to the growth that is we need as a city. That's an international city. Thank you very much. Mr. Moore. Next speaker, please. Good evening, council. Members and mayor. My name's Christine Pettit. I'm a resident and homeowner in the Wrigley neighborhood. I say homeowner not because I think that it is important, but because it's something. That is used a lot to signify value in our city. But I do want to just remind folks that we are a majority renters. And a lot of the folks that I work with and advocate. For are renters. And I'm the executive director of Building Healthy Communities Long Beach. I've also been told that the message of those of us who support, who are generally supportive of the land use element is too smart. And I just want to say, I don't know what to do about that. We listen to facts. We let our position change over time. We have conversations, and we haven't seen a lot of that from folks who are saying no. In fact, a lot of us have wanted have have. Actually held back from speaking because all of the misinformation that's out there and demonization of people who are generally. Supportive. Of the land use element. But I felt like I had to be here tonight speaking. And so, you know, in general. We believe that building healthy communities, Long Beach, that we need a. Long range plan that puts forth a vision for Long Beach's future. We're opposed to decreases to density that were put forth by the Planning Commission, but we don't believe in trickle down density. We think that it's really important that density is coupled with inclusionary zoning and protections for affordable housing. And we do not want to see the displacement that has come along with the downtown plan. We also think it's unfair and. To our city's detriment to only increase density in already dense areas. Maintaining neighborhoods the way. They are today. Keeps. The discrimination and discriminatory. Policies that created these inequities intact. And we we're just here to partner with you as we move forward, because we want this to. Be a meaningful plan. Thank you. Thank you, Ms.. Pettit. Next speaker, please. Good evening, counsel. My. My name is Bruce DeMello, live in Lakewood Village. I'm the president of the Lakewood Village Neighborhood Association. And you've heard of the bag woman? Well, tonight, I'm the bag man. And the reason I'm the bag man is we've got two big issues in Lakewood Village. And I'd like to thank Stacy Mungo for working with us on these issues. Parkview Village is a commercial area that the developer is trying very hard to get that to a mixed use situation. And it's been a community commercial for 70 years approximately. And and so I put out ballots just neighbors. If they'd put out ballots just asking if they supported community commercial or if they wanted to support mixed use. And so in the bag, I've got these ballots and they've come in so, so fast. I haven't even been able to counting process entering my computer. I've done a lot, but I haven't even done them all. And then the other important issue that we have in Lakewood Village, we've got 166 apartment buildings that surround Lakewood Village. And I gave you a packet. Each of you should have a packet that includes pictures of what happened in West Chester when single family homes that used to have a montessori school right behind them where they built a five story apartment. So the other thing we're asking for is to keep our apartment buildings, our 166 buildings, keeping us two storey and keep our community, you know, the nice community that we have in Lakewood Village. So I appreciate your support and that. And again, these are all the ballots for both the park view village keeping it commercial and in keeping our our apartments two story. Thank you. Thank you so much, sir. Appreciate it. Next speaker, please. Council members. I am Steve Stingley. Can you raise us a little bit? 4715 Screen Middle Road. I echo what Bruce says. I'm a 40 year resident of Lakewood Village, and there's a single page with my name, Steve Stingley, on the top. You all have that. Now I apologize. I apologize. Can you raise a stand a little bit? I apologize that there's an edit because of a change that was made recently. But to echo what Bruce said. The apartments, the Hunter 66 and Lakewood Village. And by the way, Lakewood Village is part of Kd5 Stacy's area. But all the apartments in City five are in Lakewood Village. They're on Lakewood Castle and Bellflower. There's 166 of them. Most of them are one or two stories. One of them is three. The Louis says the maximum height is for all one. 66 is now three stories. We're asking that to be changed to two and we coordinate this with Stacy. The second thing is, as far as Park View Village goes, you've probably been to the post office. Sarah Willows Great restaurants, pound ramen restaurant around Carson and Lakewood. Nice places. Well, it's a quaint area there. There are one or two stories, Bruce said. There are two story commercial, but the owner developer has this idea. He's got it. For two years we've been working on a big master plan, a huge plan. What he wants is mixed residential, and he would like to put 300 to 500 apartments in that area as mixed use. We absolutely oppose that. The current arrangement with two story commercial is excellent for Lakewood Village. It maps into the feel the personality of Lakewood Village. The current alien elements. Define Parkview Village as a two story commercial. We're asking you, please keep it that way. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next picture, please. Mayor Garcia, Councilwoman Staci Mango and the rest of the council. My name is Laura Brewer. I live at 4417 Greenwood Avenue. I came to Long Beach as a one year newlywed with my husband, Chuck. I worked for five years for minimum wage. Chuck and I worked our tail off. We saved our money. We. We did everything ourselves. And we ended up being able to buy in south of Conant, our first starter home. We did the same thing for eight years and were able to move then to Lakewood Village. The reason we did that is we wanted to be able to afford a backyard, a safe neighborhood, a suburban lifestyle where our kids could walk to school and we would get to know our neighbors. I actually delayed having kids ten years in order to get that. I want to encourage the young people in the room that you can do it too. It's not easy, but it can be done. Everyone in the room has a similar story. I have three questions for the council. I don't think I'm going to get to them. One is more better. I don't think so in my neighborhood. But if downtown or there are other areas that work for them, then okay. Second, what is good for Long Beach? I think each council district needs to decide. In Lakewood Village we want to storey commercial. We want the apartments to remain the same so that we can keep the neighborhood the way it is. The third thing is, who do you listen to? Developers, state officials, political parties, special interest groups or your constituents? Remember us? We're the ones that voted for you. We voted for you because we wanted you to make decisions that were in my best interest. Thank you. And we will all know soon how you vote and who you're listening to. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Thank you. Good evening. Mayor Garcia and members of city council. My name is Adam Correll, president of the Long Beach Commercial Real Estate Council. And we're here to share our support for the land use element with empirical data presented in the recently published Beacon Economics housing report. We are in the midst of a housing crisis. The LOO also provides more opportunities to create housing for teachers, students, families, seniors and our children. The LU provides the opportunity to invest and more importantly, reinvest in our business corridors. We encourage you to support a 21st century city and embrace opportunities for young people. Which brings us to a good point. I'm going to quote President Connolly from Cal State Long Beach, which I put which we pulled from one of our recent social media posts referencing the Lewin Housing quote, This is our biggest challenge. We must have housing for teachers, students and staff. Let's get to work to save Long Beach. End quote. Say yes to the loo. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi, Mayor Garcia. Council. My name is Mike Clemson. I live in the fourth district. I want to say that I think the people opposing the land use. Element is a group that's primarily motivated, motivated by fear of the long loss of the Long Beach of. Their childhood. I think it's a group motivated by the fear of new people moving to the skies. Everyone gets a chance. To speak the privilege they enjoyed moving into their neighborhoods. It's a group that sees every challenge that we're. Facing as a society, from climate change to. Affordable housing and chooses to ignore them. The land use element is what climate change action looks like. The it's what addressing affordable housing looks like. At best, this is a moderate policy that begins to address these problems, but goes nowhere near as far as we need to to deal with them. But there's an ecosystem of fake news and conspiracy theories that support this belief that they are under siege, and it only fuels the resentment and grievance as they descend further into their next door bubble. Well, you know, that's how you operate in the world without facts that you can't support the land use element unless you're a chauffeur . Developers that somehow multifamily residences in the eighties cause a nationwide crime epidemic, and that the laws of supply and demand don't matter. And that where we're worried. About more about street parking than we are about people. Living on the street. I believe, in fact, and the. Facts shows that housing affordability is a real problem. For the majority of our city. I believe in. Science, and the best science shows that building more housing brings the cost of. Housing down. I believe in inclusion, and real inclusion means welcoming people into your neighborhoods and giving them a place where they can live. And I hope that the city council is able to pass a land use element. That lives up to the values of our city. And doesn't give in to the fear mongering and conspiracy theory, that theory that's driven this process so far. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Clemson. Next speaker, please hold on 1/2. I want to make sure that everyone that speaks deserves respect for their opinion. And so just the side comments and stuff. Please, everyone gets to speak. Thank you. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. My name is her Linda Chico. I am the filled deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn. I am also a constituent of the city of Long Beach and a homeowner. The supervisor has asked me to make a few remarks on her behalf. The County of Los Angeles and the city of Long Beach have enjoyed a great partnership in our efforts to increase affordable housing opportunities. Last year we saw the grand opening of Emmanuel Place, a city county partnership that completely restored a former church and transformed it into a 25 unit community for formerly homeless seniors. When the city recently proposed an innovative mixed use development of 95 units of affordable housing featuring a public park space and a YMCA supervisor, Hahn was happy to commit $1.5 million of the fourth district's housing fund to make that happen. As you know, the Carmelita was built in 1941 and located in North Long Beach. Has the historical distinction of being the first public housing development in Los Angeles County. It is also the county of Los Angeles's largest development, with a total of 713 units, of which 558 are family units and 155 are dedicated senior units. It spans 64 acres with numerous facilities, including two community centers, family resource and learning centers, recreation center and award winning seven acre sustainable urban garden and large open space for residents to enjoy. Although there are no immediate plans to build additional housing at the Carmel Leto's, Supervisor Hahn recognizes the city's vision and fully supports its recommendation to increase the density at this location. This would provide a future opportunity to increase affordable housing in that region, in that region that desperately needs it. Supervisor Hahn is also looking to assist existing property owners. The county has partnered with the city of Long Beach. Oh, I ran out of time. Yes, really? Okay. Well, Supervisor Hahn offers her support and will continue to work with the city. Thank you. Thank you, Michiko. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening. Honorable mayor, vice mayor, councilmembers city staff and my fellow residents. My name is Megan Kerr. I'm a Long Beach native Lifetime resident. Proud a strict eighth district resident and a homeowner. I say homeowner only because I own a home on a street that is adjacent to a major transportation corridor. I am directly impacted by the proposed land use element and all the. Concerns of privacy that others. Are speaking of. I stand here in strong support of the land use element. As originally written, it was thoughtfully and professionally drawn up and designed to address the housing needs, economic and community growth of a diverse city that I love. For the next 20 years, as I stated at the Planning Commission meeting, this plan was last updated when I was in high school and now my youngest child is set to graduate from Poly High. It is long past time we address this important issue. Some others have and will speak more eloquently than I. About economic development, the housing crisis. The need for more housing. So I will not duplicate those thoughts. Out of respect for your time. I would like to speak to a point that Mr. Modica brought up in his presentation. I am here is a private residence, but I do have some knowledge of our school district. In my opinion, part of the magic of our USD. Schools is that a large percentage of our teachers. Staff and administrators live here in Long Beach. Of those teachers and staff, a large portion are of and close to retirement age. As we hire more teachers and staff for Long Beach Unified, I want them to be able to live in the city that they serve. That means we need new housing at price. Points that they can manage. And Mr. Modica referenced that in his presentation earlier. Because we know that community port. Support is critical to students. Success. When you see your teachers and administrators in your city, it matters. I want that opportunity for the teachers who will continue to teach in this district. I urge this Council to support the land use element as originally drafted. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Mr. Next Speaker, please. Good evening, honorable mayor, vice mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Andy Kerr and I am a resident of the eighth District. I am also the fourth District representative on the Measure H Citizen Oversight Advisory Board for the Measure H tax that was passed by voters last March in response to the homelessness crisis. And I'm here today to voice support for the city's efforts on the land use element. As far as voicing my support for a visionary and effective Louie, I commend Mayor Garcia for your opinion piece in the Press Telegram today. I can't really make the case any any better than the reasons that you cited in your article this morning. But in light of where we are this evening, I have three main concerns. I think we've we've fairly established that we are in the midst of a housing crisis. And my question is, are we responding in an appropriate way that that would be in response to a crisis situation? Have we allowed special interests who are not personally experiencing this crisis have a larger influence in reducing the original capacity of addressing our short term and long term needs? And that leads me to my second point. Money alone is not going to solve the homelessness crisis that we're in. We were able we were blessed to get voters to approve Measure H last year, but we may just be treading water if we don't address this housing crisis. The problem of 60,000 people without a home in L.A. County and our failure to plan in the past has helped get us where we are today on this issue. And then my third and final point is the question of what is the economic cost of not acting? I also come to you as a business leader. I work as a CFO for a company that employs 90 people in the region. I would ask you to don't let people like me who are lucky to own a home here in Long Beach. I've lived here for almost 50 years. Don't let us kill the golden goose. Think for my kids, for my young adult kids. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Kerr. Next speaker, please. Good evening on Barbara Schuller. I live in the 2200 block of Grand Avenue. I hadn't planned on speaking, so this may not be as put together as I would like, but I did want to make a couple of comments. I'm listening to all of the presentations and the comments. It strikes me as interesting the difference that's being laid out between overcrowding and high density. When I grew up, there were four of us in the bedroom and every single one in that household grew up to be constructive. People who who supported systems, who are responsible and good citizens. And I don't know that. Just throwing up a lot of I-beams and cement is really going to. Solve a lot of the problems and issues that our city is faced with. There is nothing in this to support affordable housing. There's nothing to. Encourage the development to address that problem. I currently live on the 2200 block of Grand Avenue. It is a street. The whole street is small ball sized duplexes. Each unit is less than 900 square feet. But it is a wonderful family neighborhood. We are all one story. We have yards and it's very affordable and is very desirable for people. Having three stories. Is not going to. Necessarily mean that there's a good neighborhood to raise good citizens. So I think that a lot of the comments have pointed that there could have been better transparency in terms of what the loo really does get us and what it doesn't. And I just. Want to throw those comments. Out there. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. And council members. My name is Pamela Rice. I reside in. District five south of Kona, located. Behind the parcels, the bow tie parcels. And there were some changes made in the last meeting of the Planning Commission that changed that parcel area into mixed use from park from commercial. And I'm asking that that be returned back to commercial only. Is it now back to commercial? So my concern is that if the L'UE is passed as it is today, that. That particular area would then be vulnerable because the white area or the distance between the businesses and that residential area is about enough to to move a truck through. And that means if there's any kind of residential areas placed in that small little parcel, that they'd be able to look into our backyards. I'm not against growth. I think it's important we need to be considerate. But into the areas that we're living. When you're placing apartments right there on top. Of single family living areas, that it's not taking that into consideration. It would also remove. The appearance of the city that or that particular area, the characteristics of that single family living. And we're just asking that you take that into consideration. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Mayor Garcia, Councilwoman Pryce, my name is Elizabeth Keeney, and you guessed it, I'm in the third district. I request the council just. Direct staff to implement a master IIR rather than a program IIR. For the elderly. And recirculate the air based on. The changes since its inception. Program IIR embedded in the elderly takes away the ability for the public to have representation on future projects. Under the Louie, there's no way to identify environmental impacts for a yet to be proposed development. And the current program EIA are embedded in the Louise states set an air. Quality esthetics and traffic can't be mitigated to insignificant levels. By having the program air. Embedded in the Louis. This allows economic issues to override the need to mitigate the drafty air has not been recirculated as the maps have changed in the Louis and this is effectively eliminated standing required in the Sequa process. All decisions are therefore left to staff. A master air provides for a tiered approach that also can simplify planning and reduce paperwork while still allowing for review of future individual projects via council and planning. Please request a master rather than program, air and recirculation. Of the air based on the. Changes so that the public can have standing in impact as the general plan becomes reality. Thank you. Thank you so much, Nick Speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Mark Helmick. I'm a resident of the seventh District 3952 Rose Avenue, Long Beach. Let me tell you a little bit about the city of my youth. It is not Long Beach. It's a midwestern hamlet far, far away called Kirksville, Missouri. There are Midwesterners from Iowa that moved here. There's a battleship that remembers the good folks of Iowa. I came to Long Beach because it reflected somewhat my value set. I worked hard. I raised two kids in this town I built. I didn't build them. I bought two houses and refurbished both of them. I bought the ugliest one on the block twice because I believed that Long Beach was a great place. It represented my values. Now I hear that we're going to preserve the neighborhoods as a museum. Am I a relic? I don't see on the l'ue there may be a speck or two, but what the l'ue seem to be lacking are some plots of land that can be developed into single family neighborhoods, similar to the one I moved into in my house was built in 1937, not in the eighties. Long Beach might be Iowa by the sea. It attracted to me for its values. But here's the deal We have no obligation. Long Beach has no obligation to any other than your own. I'm a transplant, but I love it as my home. You have no obligation to future residents in in the Louis presentations that I saw. Your own numbers say that 60, 70% of Long Beach doesn't work in Long Beach. They work elsewhere. So what then is the obligation to what? How's the workers of the other communities? We housed their overflow masses. That's what density represents to me. We're trying to increase it for no apparent reason other than we want to. But you got to put a little perspective on it, too. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much, sir. One more minute. I can't. We got to we've got to keep going south of Los Angeles. I'll let you get. The last, last sentence. Los Angeles has a density of 8500 people per mile. Long Beach has 9348. We have a greater density than Los Angeles. Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate it. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Liliana Noble. I live downtown. I'm here on behalf of the North. Pine Neighborhood Alliance. We do not belong to Kono. We're going to grow. And. Putting up a wall. It doesn't work for Trump and it ain't going to work for Long Beach. We will grow. We are renters. We are majority renter. I'm not a renter. But in. My neighborhood. 80% of the people who live in. My neighborhood are renters. And that is true is a heck of a lot of the neighborhoods around town. Homeownership is a myth for the young people that I work with. They do not have. They just don't have the jobs or the opportunities to deal with individuals, single family, home ownership. So we are currently majority renters. And we have got a shortage of affordable housing for the people who live here right now. Even if we put up a damn wall. We still have thousands, thousands of residents who need affordable housing. What we need is not the l'ue that's in front of you right now. What we need is an employee that will set the vision for affordable housing for the people who live here right now. What we need is an employee that will say no net loss. I agree with some of the comments. I'm sure they don't trust developers. We need a vision that says you will build affordable housing. You will not displace the people that are here right now. And that's the vision that's going to lead us forward. And it will continue to keep us diverse in terms of our ethnicity and our income levels. We have a right to this kind of a future. We there's a wonderful future that people are living out in the suburbs on the east side. But that ain't the reality for the majority of the folks who live here in Long Beach. And I hope that you will not make decisions based on your little individual districts. We are a city and we need leadership that we haven't had here previously. That's why we don't have an elderly right now. We need you to lead us collectively, citywide, with development that will put this affordable housing wherever the heck we can put it. That will increase mixed use so that we put people in apartments near where they can shop and catch a ride and be an economic motor in our city. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, everybody. I envy you, your patients. And I just want to commend the city staff that have been really graceful. And. Facilitating throughout this entire process. You all deserve raises. Yes. They do. Everyone, guys, everyone, please. Come on. My name is Karen Reside. I live in the First District and I'm one of those poor people that a lot of people. Don't want in their neighborhoods. The only difference is my skin. I live in a high rise. That is 17 stories on the corner of Pacific and Seventh Street. Surrounding us are two story apartments, single family residence, multiple story buildings, and we all just get along just fine. We have a wonderful neighborhood. So height is not the defining issue. Change is a defining issue. And I'm really sorry that people can't look. Further than. Their own particular needs and uses when we need to be looking further out. What is the city going to be like in the future? Are we going to continue to redline where people live? Which is part of what? This plan could be depending on how it ends up being. I live in a building with 200 other seniors and some of them don't have mobility. They want to have services close to their building and accessible. A lot of people want to not have that. And my discussions with the developer, that's what his intention is. Seniors also don't drive, so they don't need as much parking. And as Mr. Medicare's report indicated, we are all getting. Older and we're going to be. More. Also, 42% don't speak English. Where are they tonight? Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. We're going to go back up top. Sure. We have someone to back up top. Hello? Can you hear me? Yes. Where? Where are you? Okay. Hi. Good evening. Okay. Thank you very much. Yes. Please say your name as well. For the record. You can hear me. Okay. Hi. Good morning. My name is Luiz began, and I come here to ask this council to reject land use for affordable housing in Long Beach. If you're going to want to fight for a freeway going towards the ocean or El Segundo. You'll see. To the right side of the right side is. Wilmington Avenue exit. There are rows of affordable housing that L.A. city for the homeless and for those with with low income. Although this L.A. city had good intention of providing affordable housing for the community, I can tell you that no one wants to live there due to drugs, crimes, gangs and fear of being assaulted. When the government provides affordable housing to people who cannot afford the income to rent or buy a home, it brings with it. Individuals behavior. That is unpredictable and can cost lives. It also brings with individual who has no investment in maintaining the property or pride because they know that government is on their side. They may have thought that it will be the government who will do the upkeep of the property. The Wilmington Avenue exit proved that. What I'm saying, those homes many years ago had values and today it has become a crime area because of land use for affordable housing. So we fully use the you before you use the land for affordable housing. I would like it to be built next to your home and if you live there one year. You can tell me that you enjoy. Living next to affordable homes. So in front. So if you like to see trash in your front of your home, then I will vote on your side. I cannot imagine affordable housing and empty acres in the White House long, so I can't imagine affordable housing in my backyard. So before you build close to me first, build it next to you. I worked hard to find a place where I know I can feel safe at night. I work hard to know that that when I walk out of my house, my environment. Is. Safe. Thank you very much. Thank you. Reject land use for affordable housing. Thank you. Thank you very much, ma'am. Next speaker, please. Mr. Mayor. Jorge Flores. I lived in the community for 38 years. So I know homelessness is an issue that we all want to tackle. Nobody wants to see anybody in the streets. You know, we understand how that happens. It happens gradually. It's just someone just doesn't decide to get on drugs or or fall apart. So being 38 years across the street from the mission, I was able I've been able to observe. Why is that? Why are there so many homelessness around the mission, but not in the mission? It looks good from the outside. But not in the inside. Something was beckoning me to go inside. So I went in earlier, as some of you folks saw me with my friend Ricky, who was going to the mission daily to go eat. He's reforming to start coming out of a gang activity, gang infested area. We're both trying to help our area and we're both learning today. I'm learning a lot, too, to listen in. The language of the heart is in the House today. So I want this is what I saw and this is what I'm asking for, Mr. Mayor. And all of the council. I'm asking for help because these are the things I've seen. I've seen the problem of homelessness. It's broken up the mission. This is what I saw. I have come to ask for help to find the solution immediately. Okay. Party and policy aside, might divide as leaders. But one thing unites us. Misery. And. Oppression. This is what I said. I said I will look for the poor. I am the poor. I said I will work for the Disenfranchized and the Disenfranchized. I said I would like for the oppressed. I am the oppressed. I saw ingrained would be white supremacy bullying. Serving food. Welcoming. Only that welcoming only went when when the people and the people that don't live around the mission come. They make a blessed, you know, like the old saying that everything that glitters is gold. Thank you very much, sir. Oh, here I go. Here I go. I just. Last sentence. Please. Okay. I saw broken gays and transsexuals reduced to perform sexual acts. I saw bullying of broken men of color and brown and black. Thank you very much, sir. Yeah, yeah, that's all. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name's Art Panetta. I'm from the city of Lakewood. Yes. We speak into the mixture of appreciating friendly neighbors. Born in Long Beach, my children, born in Long Beach went to school in our Long Beach schools. We shop in Long Beach. Long Beach is right on the border of of our neighborhood. And we have a particular bottleneck area that's Los Coyotes, Studebaker, Road, Cars and Street. So an intersection there that has a level of service grade F right now. And. There's accidents. There's near misses daily there. Hey, with the land use element coming in, I would like to address the town center area, the town center acreage. If you look at all the place type maps would account for 2700 units of the 7000 units that Long Beach is requiring for the land use quota elements. So that's like one third. Not a lot of attention has been given to town center because frankly, most of Long Beach residents don't even border Long Beach town center. But Lakewood is right across the street. Right across the street, Carson Street, which only has one exit out on the Carson Street from that community. Then we have the four lane bridge, which is two lanes in each direction that goes over the San Gabriel River to that intersection I'm talking about, which Long Beach has historically not put left hand turn signal or traffic control. There's been accidents. There's been deaths, all kinds of problems. There's high stress. A new high school there, Long Beach High School. McBryde. Thank you for your time, sir. Quite an issue. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Next speaker, please. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. My name's Roy Bennett. I live in the fourth district of Anaheim and Examiner, so we just finished paying off our house. We've lived there for 24 years now. 24 years. I've lived in the same house with my wife, and we bought it as an investment. Yeah, we want to live there. I'm a native Californian. I had a 17 year stint in Saint Louis, Missouri, and there is something in Saint Louis that you should know about. And that's high density, high density buildings. There is the Pruitt-Igoe high density, high rise buildings that were built for lower income. And this was right after World War Two. And by the mid 1950s, they were tearing them down with dynamite. The whole idea of putting a lot of people in a very small area, high, high density living in a multi-story building, these buildings were, I think, about 13 or 15 storeys high. Granted, that's not the scene you're planning here, but high density living. This is this thing that people move out of New York City for. They don't want a lot of extra people here. I don't I'm not thrilled with the mandate handed down from Sacramento. I, I don't understand this. We don't I'm sorry to sound snobby. I don't think we need more people here in California, and I don't think we need a little long breather. We only take three minute showers. You can only water twice a week. What are we going to do when the thousands of more people here have not? The brownouts and the blackouts, we had those a few years ago. Thank you for your testimony, sir. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Laura Selmer, a resident address on file. I have cut a three minute pitch down to two. I hope you'll let me go over if I can. Background. I was awarded the county. I was a foster child. My own crumbling family was on welfare and living in low income housing, low income and painful, familiar with the disadvantage and the infinite gulf between poverty and great wealth. I share this untold truth about myself to eliminate any notion that I am ignorant of socioeconomic disadvantage. I know it very well. Tonight, I'm a speaker with a design. B.A., MBA, LEED, AP. My city. My career spans. Design, marketing, defense, banking, construction. I'm no stranger to the real force of big business money. I studied this l'ue you cover to cover. I urge you to receive and file. First we were told. Just look at the maps. Just look at the maps. You know, of 39,000 people in Long Beach are colorblind. They can't tell anyway. And now they're laughing and stop and stop. Okay. But the document is what you're approving. The document, 75% of the document is a marketing pitch to big business investment funds. If you look at this, the underpinning of this work doesn't pass the sniff test. 1.5 people in one room in a bedroom is severe overcrowding. It needs light. We need to look at the data. Thank you. I would just one last sentence. For one more sentence, go for. The great economist, Beacon Financial. He is a consultant for the construction industry to the state of California. This housing crisis with severe overcrowding is something we need to question. And I thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Receive implies that. We thank you. Next speaker, please. Seven More Sincere Language Democratic Socialists of America, Long Beach Branch. The latest ailments puts two different bodies of organized capitalism against one another. On one side, we have private developers, the only current source for capital and expertize needed to increase the much needed supply of housing in the city. On the other side are small, local, medium sized landowners who wish to maintain their local monopoly over low income housing throughout the city. Both parties act as engines of displacement by exploiting this city's lack of tenure protections and a social safety net. With regard to the value itself, the city manager and planners spent an inordinate amount of time developing this plan, only to see it upended and publicly undermined by the mayor. The mayor did this in order to appease that explicitly racist land owner organization so that he can guarantee that no serious challenger faces reelection. None of the suggestions provided by the A.L. forces should be considered as valid valid policy proposals. They represent reactionary, short sighted interests that benefit a tiny fraction of the residents of the city. Conor gripes about density, quote, increase in crime and every dog whistle talking points should disqualify them from any serious consideration in this debate. We need statutory protections to guarantee a large and increasing supply of affordable, equitable housing for everyone looking to live in the city. The federal government is obviously not interested in providing and protecting this right to housing. So the mandate falls on local governments to strengthen something they cannot do with addition, without additional requirements on developers to provide these units. Density is inevitable and necessary as all rent control and includes inclusionary zoning. Housing is a right and not a commodity. Thank you for your time. Thank you. 90 seconds next speaker, please. Good evening, Honorable Vice Mayor and members of council. My name is Rich Steines. I live in the Lakewood Village neighborhood of the fifth District. And my my address is on file. In my opinion, it is unfair that you are actually taking public comment before no active motion. Is being brought to the floor. Residents who came here tonight. Cannot speak directly to any changes to the Louie that you may pass. This in itself is not a transparent process. We should be having public comment after a motion is made and any substitute motions and amendments are brought forward. So whatever you do end up approving tonight, it needs to be brought back so the public can have the opportunity to comment on your plan. Before we end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an e.r. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Please. My name is David Donovan. I live in the fifth district. Lakewood Village. You have my packet? It's. Council member Stacey Mungo. Thank you for getting. One of the two advertising signs removed from Lakewood Plaza, a public park. Now, please insist that this beleaguered public space be included in the Louis. The Parks Landscape Plan was approved by the Parks and Recreation Commission in October 2006. Council member l Austin I icon property unviable. So I'm your constituent to the proposal. You supports four storey apartment buildings for the grassy knoll behind single family homes unviable. That is not acceptable. Please restrict any future buildings on this grassy knoll. No. 2 to 2 stories. Only with the exception of a three storey senior housing building located behind our property. This neighborhood is one and two storey homes. The three storey building behind our property result in major loss of our backyard privacy. I repeat. Restrict any future buildings on the grassy knoll to two stories only. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Next speaker, please. Thank you, everyone, for your time. My name is Andrew Carr. I live in the second district. I heard a comment tonight about overflowing. Masses and it reminded. Me of a poem that you all were probably taught at one point in school by Emma Lazarus. I'm not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land here at our sea, washed sunset and gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch whose flame is the imprisoned lightning. And her name mother of exiles, her beacon hand glows world wide Welcome her mild eyes command the air bridged harbor that Twin Cities frame keep ancient lands your storied pomp. Christ, she was silent and lips. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these the homeless. Tempest tossed to me. I limp, left my lab beside the golden door. I think it's a shame that the executive director of the Council of Neighbor Organizations began his test, began in fact, started this night by speaking a minute over his time, which I think is disrespectful, given how much of a voice he's already been given in this process and by given how many people want to speak tonight. I also think that him and his fellow supporters have had multiple points, hijacked this process, disrespected the staff, the city, have insulted directly and how it has been rewarded. The mayor grants him a private conversation in which he agrees not to run for mayor in exchange for some private mayoral roundtables in which Robert Fox Hand selects who gets to attend in order to make further changes to this document. I believe this entire process has, unfortunately, and I don't believe it any bad will. I just think it's bad policy and bad politics. But I think it may be this entire process privilege. Homeowners and renters have not had a voice, and I urge you to file this entire managed element and start over and include renters in the process. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is John Apple Quest. I'm from the fourth District and I have other interests in Long Beach. You know, like Solomon, I know that you're going to have to end up splitting the baby because, you know, we do need some housing because there are young people that will need housing in the future . Unfortunately, with aspects like rent control that are coming in, that might turn everything into condos. Um, but the one point I want to point out that I heard from the staff tonight was, is they want an annual review after we've settled whatever, we've settled here and we could be back here again next year. I would like to propose that we change that to review after five years, and I would like you to consider that. So at least I could get a little bit of rest in between these meetings. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Lynnette Firenze. And the biggest issue in the overall location of the high density place types and heights, which are still heavily concentrated in the central downtown area. The city is the center area has the worst air quality. We have the diesel death zone expansion of the 710 in the VNS facility, we had the least amount of open space, as little as 0.26 acres per thousand has compared to the zip code. On the east side is 19.1 per thousand, the shortest life expectancy in the city of up to seven years. Highest crime higher density equals higher crime. We have most of the parking impacted area and based on the staff report estimates over 8000 new units in the central downtown area without any mitigation for parking or any new roads. Yet the majority of the highest density, unlimited density. With heights of 5 to 10 stories and very substandard parking are located in the central and downtown. Even though parking is not regulated by the LAPD, the density the elderly. Permits greatly impacts parking. State regulations for TOD supersedes city requirements and for affordable and new senior. Rental housing units. The parking is as. Low as 0.5 spaces per unit, so there were two projects that were approved in the summer of 17, a couple of years ago, I'm sorry, a couple of months ago at. 1795, Long Beach Boulevard, 101 affordable units and one manager's unit on an acre with 77 parking spaces. That means 26 or 25 parking spaces will be built with no parking. So we've got a quarter of the units, 25 out of 102 with no residential parking and no guest parking. Another project around the corner at 1836 Locust Avenue. 48 affordable units, 40 parking spaces. Once again, eight new residential units without any onsite parking, no guest parking. So, in fact, all new development is not required to provide parking. Please keep this in mind because it does affect the. Density and quality of life in our neighborhood. A couple other issues. I have. Is in the front end. Zone. We still have three areas that are thank you are women. Thank you so much for your time. Next speaker, please. Hi, I'm Belinda Watson and I live in the seventh district and my focus to all of you is the unintended consequences. And I know that probably before all the other concerns, when all the other decisions were made, for example, to put the blue line through Wrigley area, I pretty sure at that particular time we can forecast into the future that because that blue light went through our neighborhood in Wrigley, that because of that now we're considered high threat or transit district and we have to have a high density. That's an unintended consequence because on board the road there is one building which is a senior building that's multiple storeys and I'm pretty sure that's in other areas as well. It's an unintended consequence that because that one building is there, that is the justification to put other large buildings. And so the only cause and an unintended consequence is that your decision today is going to be the reason why it's okay to increase density even more in the future. So we have to look at intended consequences. And for I've been reading in the newspaper where I was a renter. I decided that I didn't want to be a renter anymore. And I bought a condo and then I bought the condo and I bought a home and my home is in the Wrigley area. All renters eventually may become future home owners. So when we're attacking each other, we're attacking ourselves. So the homes that we are building is for we need renters, every need homeowner and we need to respect. What the needs are of both. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Next speaker, please. I mean, it's Tom Stout. I live in the Wrigley area and this is my neighbor. She just spoke for me. I don't know. It looks. Like it's you know, from past experience, it's density. For dollars. It's pack them and stack them. It's happen. And, you know, we have. Mr. Winer up. In San Francisco who, you know, we had one on the West Coast, but now we have a. On the East Coast. Now we have a West Coast winner. And I don't agree with much. Of what he says, you know. So I just don't know if we really need all the. Density. I mean, people go, well. You're a homeowner. Well, I busted my ass to be a homeowner. And I'll be honest, I own more than what they're paid for because I worked a number of jobs to get one. A lot of people do go to college, they graduate, but they get a degree and some useless study that they enjoyed. You know, that's why you're working for minimum wage. Get a skill, learn a trade. You know, you know, I'm 72 and I still go to pick apart and get greasy because that's the kind of cars I'm old. I like old cars also. I like my old house and I don't want a big building close to it that's going to look down on my. Less than well-kept backyard. As you told me, I couldn't even have my easy up. In the driveway 80. Feet from the street because it was against city code. Wow. 80 feet. Who in the hell notice do you use? Google Maps? So I'm against that. Look, I was poor when I grew up. I'm not rich now. I mean, I'm comfortable. I do have a teacher's pension. I work as a teacher and. Charge for 32 years. Why don't I live in Torrance? Because I couldn't afford it. Reason? I have my house. I got a deal from my girlfriends, and I bought her house when. She moved to Alaska. I don't know why, but she did. Well, I do know her family. As much as I don't want to cut you off. Okay. You know, this this meetings have been sort of contentious, so I thought I let out a. Little. Bit. Thank you for that. It's getting dry. We're all neighbors. We all have our own opinions. And thank you. We don't always agree. Bonus time for humor. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Vice Mayor and council members. My name is Diana Coronado and I'm here on behalf of the Building Industry Association. The BIA is a nonprofit trade association representing 1200 companies employing 100,000 people. On behalf of our membership. I would like to express concern to the recent down zoning in many areas of the general plan. Instead, we recommend that the city strongly consider the extreme lack of housing in its planning efforts. Moving forward with the down zone planned is simply repeating the mistakes our region has made for decades and will ensure that the housing affordability and homelessness crisis is continue to worsen. This will lead to an even greater strain on the city's economy. And furthermore, we support the city's efforts to produce housing of all types. Between 2014 and 2001, regional data projects Long Beach housing demand to reach 9487 new households, according to residential permit data. Long Beach permitted 1150 units from 2014 to 2017. This means the city must produce an additional 5838 units for 2021 to achieve its housing goals. Abandoning the areas which had been previously identified in former plans would have met housing goals and would have gone a long way to help me have the city meet those goals. Additionally, new housing will have immediate and long term positive benefits for the city of Long Beach. This includes. Quality jobs. Government revenue and economic stimulus. The construction of homes is one of the largest sources of job creation. We want to thank the council members and staff for your hard work on this plan thus far. And we hope that you consider these comments today. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Sheila Levin, and I'm from the fifth District. And I think there's a lot of hysteria about not enough housing. I'm in real estate and I work. Mainly. On property management and. There cycle's real estate cycles. And we're building, you know, there's all this high density going up everywhere, but soon there will be a cycle. It happens. It's happened throughout history. It will happen again. It wasn't that long ago when we had a hard time finding renters. It wasn't that long ago at all. And why isn't anybody talking about that? It's everybody's hysterical and it's all for nothing, because soon you're going to have a lot of vacant units. And I'm already seeing it. I deal with. Multi single family commercial and we're at the tip right now. And soon things are going to change and there's going to be a lot of units that are vacant and the rents are going to have to come down and they will just like in the past at least they will stabilize, but they will not continue to go up like they're going up now. Just look at history. I'm totally against density. I do live in the filth and I don't want to leave the fifth. But, you know, if they start putting up all these high rise buildings, you know, it's sad to say I'm probably going to have to go and I don't want to. I know what happens, you know, when a lot of high density goes into a single family neighborhood and it's not good. But just think of the cycles it's going to happen and just look at the history. Okay, don't put too many up. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Next speaker, please. Do I get a minute for levity? Just kidding. I gather it takes district first. I'd like to thank Robert Fox and Nick Rose and all the members of Council for bringing this out into the community. Without their efforts since last February, this would not this would have happened in a much maybe more reasonable fashion for you, but it wouldn't have been inclusive of the communities. So thank you to all of you. And Mayor Garcia, thank you for the roundtable meetings. They were, I believe, very successful. I think the very most important thing for me is losing control, losing our local control. I'd like you to stop and move forward in a shorter time span. I'd like you to redo the QE every five years to accommodate growth and remain in control of our city development. That will extend far beyond your time of service. A couple of the things, and I'm a little critical, but Mayor, I read the editorial today and I think fear and anger are the two greatest motivators. And I saw fear in vulnerable to lawsuits and loss of local control when this really has nothing to do with that. If we if we do it right and do it in smaller segments of fear. When you mentioned housing and homelessness crisis, those two issues are not a part of the Louie. The state law doesn't allow them to be part of their issues. And our false statements that I read where planners worked hard to create opportunities for modest growth across our city, that is a joke. I mean, it was serious density that was being proposed the first time out. And if it wasn't for your leadership, it may not have turned around. The other false statement was, if we don't plan appropriately, we can expect more homelessness. These houses are not going to be built for homeless people. That is another issue that that we need to take on as a city ourselves. And my 6 seconds. Oh, my God. Okay. Misleading impact fees do not add more police or fire. We have 183 fewer police than we did in 2006. In impact fees do not replace our sewer system. These state laws are to move more people. And yet, according to the UCLA study, 72 million fewer transit riders over the last five years. Councilwoman. I got it. Vote to limit the. You even have five years, please. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, I'm Linda Sopel and my address is on file. I live in the fifth. District and I want to thank all of you for being here tonight and I know that. This is a lot and there's still a lot of people to go on. When we first found out about this and got handed those maps and went to my first meeting. You know, a lot of the anger. And fear really was because of how it was presented to us. It wasn't. And you don't even talk about the maps or what was actually being proposed. It was how it was presented to us as far as outreach to the community. That didn't happen until we raised holy hell. I have been as a lot of you know, I've been here. Many times to speak my mind about different. Things that happened with the city. But the meetings that we had at Veterans Park, at Golden Sails, the four meetings where we had over what I. Don't even know how many thousands of people came out. By the time our 3500 people came, others 3500 people that came, I think we had ten people that were for the Louis. Ah, that whole group. And guess what? They weren't all homeowners. They weren't all white. They weren't all on the east side. They were throughout the city. And I really have to say I was very heartened by. The. Participation in our city. No one ever. Asked me at any of these meetings, Am I a Democrat? Am I a Republican? Who did I vote for? They even asked me what district I lived in. We always knew is we cared about our city. Now I live in the fifth district. I'm not going to be affected by this that much. I will be by traffic. But I love my city and my neighbors will be affected by it. Other people will be affected by it, will change our city. So I'm one of those evil homeowners. I'm not lucky. I worked my tush off to get it along with my husband. We don't own property. I mean, we moved into our house when I was 40. Okay. I'm sorry. Young people are having a hard time buying houses. My parents didn't buy. Houses to a house till I was born. I was their fifth child. In the old days, you piled kids in rooms and you made it happen. Okay. And lastly, cause I know my time is up is I just want to say I sell real estate and I can sell two teachers a house easily. They are buying houses. It's a little. Incorrect to say people can't afford housing. I'm selling houses to young couples all the time, but they're doing it the way the rest of us did it. They're working their tails off to get there. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Yeah. Mr. Mayor. Garcia, city council members and staff. Thank you for listening to all of us tonight. I do want to piggyback on what my wife said about the outreach. I think the outreach would be so much easier if you put it into a utility bill. Let us know what's going on or we just have to be aware and we're not going away. Of course I say that every time I come up here, but I'd like to see one of you council members make a substitute motion tonight to make the life of this. There be five years or less, and it's important to review this. You can see the different, different sides to this. And we all have a point. We all we're all here in this city of Long Beach. We want to stay here. We love this city and we all want to help it. And we want you're our leaders. We elect. You make a motion to make it five years or less. Let us get involved and we won't be here again beating on each other. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. John Della, Tory, eighth district, eighth district, as well as some interests in the second district. You know, I was born and raised right here in Long Beach, been here 51 years. And I've lived in every part of Long Beach. I've lived it actually in the cracker boxes. At some point in time after high school. So I get what everybody's saying. And I just kind of like ask a first question for the councilmembers. How many how many of you guys actually work in the city of Long Beach other than your council job? Work in the city. So there's quite a few that don't actually work in the city. Right. So I think looking at the transportation, a lot of that, it's just it's a pie in the sky. I think we're trying to get there. And really what we have to look at and what you guys have to look at is what do. We want the city of Long Beach to look. Like? And we had one gentleman earlier. He wants us to be Manhattan in New York and high rises everywhere. And that's not the way City of Long Beach is. I think it is acceptable to expect that my grandchildren or great grandchildren can still live in the city of Long Beach and still somewhat see it the way it is. I'm not against mixed use. I'm not against affordable housing. I think that's one really sad thing that has happened. The land use element is not about affordable housing. It's really about what we want the city to look like. And it's kind of pitted the city against each other, which is never a good thing. I think there are options. I don't like the way it is set up at this point in time. There's just this broad swath pretty much coming up on the east side of our west side, Long Beach, going up Atlantic, going up Long Beach from the ocean up. And it's just three or four storeys and that's out without really looking at, hey, what should, you know, almost look at these things side by side. What can we do to make something in there mixed use? Because some some areas definitely come down in my neighborhood. Same thing. But do we need four or five storeys? I don't think so. So I just. Ask. That we revisit the numbers there. We stick to a five year. I think it gives us a chance to kind of look at where things are going. Just look at Michigan. It's one of those states where you can buy a house for a buck. Thank you very much, nick speaker, please. Good evening, mayor council dan freeland, fourth district. The phrase five years has come up a number of times this evening. And the one time I heard it that really struck me was from staff, the recommendation that unfortunately, staff got it upside down, that we take five years of grassroots planning with the communities to develop zoning. I think that should come before the value. I think we should seriously consider what the neighborhoods, what the communities want of their living condition, where they live, where they've invested their lives, or where they must live because they can't afford any place else. Five years of studying, zoning and coming up with zoning that would be acceptable to all involved or the majority involved would be the best way to go. Affordable housing. The guys in my neighborhood, they're living in the park, can't afford a better bicycle or a better shopping cart. They're not going to be moving into high density or mixed use. I thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Theresa Santee. I apologize. I'm really exhausted. I really don't know how you guys do this. I'm a resident of District five and I have been since 1995. I grew up as a renter in Redondo Beach and moved to Long Beach as an as a homeowner. And I have to say, the transition from Redondo Beach to to Long Beach was tremendous. I noticed a huge sense of community from the first day. I mean, we bought the house and the realtor, we couldn't nail the sign on. So they got a neighbor over. The neighbor came over and gave. Us a hammer. And that didn't. Happen in Redondo Beach. You don't know the names of your neighbors. And it was and I don't know. I just love it for so many reasons. I serve on the board for the Long Beach Homeless Coalition, but I'm here primarily as a resident. I just want to go on record to say, you guys have a hard job, but I trust you. I trust you as a servant. So the city of Long Beach, I trust the planning commission. I trust the city council. Good luck. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, mayor and city councilman. My name is Donald Moore. I have been a resident of the fifth District for 32 years. I'd like to say thank Bruce De Mille for his comments on the Park View Project there. I believe that should be capped at two stories community commercial. Also, according to the Southern California Association of Government calculations, Long Beach housing has a shortage of about 12.4%. That's near the city with a lowest rating of 10%. This puts Long Beach number 46 on their ranking of A with other cities. The current ILI would allow for many times this present need over an undetermined period until 2040, leading to probable series of booms and busts and housing. If it is not properly timed and I'm not sure it will be. Our city's infrastructure cannot handle the proposed increases in traffic, parking, utilities and a quality of life impacts such as public safety, crime, pollution and noise. The City's master plan, etc., does not address our city's growing need for more and better senior housing. For example, if Long Beach really got behind this looming issue, our city could be the role model for the nation. We need to look at the type of housing such as senior housing, not just the number of housing we need to repurpose, not add housing. I'll have to cut this back because I had planned on 3 minutes. But anyway, Long Beach growth rate is well below the average. More than 80% of the cities of comparable size are growing faster. In 1990, Long Beach was ranked as the 32nd largest city in California, and now it is. By 2016, it was a number 39th. Yes, there have been more people coming in to Long Beach, but our building rate needs incremental growth. Thank you, sir. Okay. We need to do two things. Have a program for the immediate shortage, beginning about three years and a much longer gradual. Thank you very much, sir. For the anticipated rise in need. Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Before you start my time, can Alana, can you shift to the left a little bit? There you go. Now we could see the time. Thank you. Hello, Mayor and council members. My name is Mona Eichner, and I'm a sixth district resident. And according to the staff report, I'm now classified as elderly. And I was quite surprised by that. Oh, my God. Anyways, I'll also note that the woman speaker before the last speaker, I agree with her. When Lee and I moved here, we entered into a community that we never had anywhere in L.A. So we love Long Beach . Go Long Beach. And anyway, this has been a really long, hard process. And Lee and I participated in those visioning events in the early aughts. And in that time to tonight, a lot of disappointment and compromising has taken place, especially in Wrigley. We still have more heights in our area that we like and have discussed them at the mayoral roundtable. Thank you. And sent our councilmember a list. Thank you. And with the hopes that tonight he will take them down or bring them down further, I already said this evening. I just want to say that Lee and I are not opposed to new development, but had always imagined Pacific and Willow that it would grow in a more grassroots manner, similar to Fourth Street and Bixby Knolls. And it is beginning on Willow, and it goes slow. And perhaps those these compromises that we've made will help that happen. We just hope we don't have a repeat of the AIDS problems and hope, if it does turn out that this is wrong, that you or future councils will not will act quickly and remedy the problem. So we can cut it cut it off before it gets out of hand. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I am Jim Dagon from the fourth District, and thank you for having this. Couple of months ago, Jerry Brown told us we're in a permanent drought and the water snowpack was 39% of what they need. You can't do this without water. I mean, you know, it's common sense. And you have your 20 year program as a as a kid. My parents would always listen to the news on the radio. And every every time there was the the red Chinese and the communist Russians had ten year plans for growth and harvest and manufacturing. None of it worked. And you can't predict the future. And, you know, just think what you're doing. Thank you. Okay. So just real quick. So, again, like like we do at the council, we've hit that second group of of 2 minutes. We're going down to 90 seconds now. Okay. All right. Speaker Hey, hey, hold on, guys. We do. We hold on. I let the hold on. What? Hey, guys, hold on a second. Let me finish. This is what this is what we always do. We have groups. If there's objection from the council, we can continue going on on 2 minutes each. If there's objection from the council, I'm following the procedures that we follow for large groups. And so is there any objection? Yeah. 90 seconds. Okay, Mr. Lee. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Lee Fukui. I live in the Wrigley area, sixth district. I'm a volunteer and activist and been involved in city matters for many years. I've worked side by side with many of you on many issues. This this process has evolved. Initially, I was very opposed to this. And I stated my concerns to my council councilman and both Council Andrew's and Oranga. And I appreciate. The roundtables that the mayor had. Because that was that allowed us to have a voice. And he everyone heard our concerns. And I think you've all heard the concerns of everyone here tonight. And I want to thank you. And I also want to thank the staff as well. I know it's a hard this is. A hard, hard, difficult issue, but I look forward to hearing. What you guys have. That conversation behind the dais. And thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi. Yes, I want to be quick. Thank you very much for all the time that you guys are giving. I just want to give you credit. There's a lot of voices here, a lot of people with a lot of different opinions. And I appreciate how much the plan has evolved from the first stages. I think we're going the right direction that everybody feels included. But I also support the five year alternative because I don't think we're there yet. I live in a neighborhood that's the intersection of the 6/2 and fourth District, and it's a neighborhood that most of the homeowners have been there for three or four generations. And I would say 90% of the homeowners are probably under Prop 13. So we have five generations living in a house. You have up to 15 people. It does make sense to allow an area like that to be able to infill and to build it back unit and to do some things with their property. On the other hand, I strongly feel that we could do this a little bit more organically instead of choosing traffic corridors that we could maybe bring the entire city up one story or something like that. And I understand that there are some restrictions in some districts like the airport and other things that impact. But it's also unrealistic that an entire household would be able to walk to work. For example, my career, I'm at a point where I may have to drive 3 hours if I want to advance to running a facility because there just aren't that many people in my role. So those are my opinions and just thoughts. And I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Mr. Mayor, council members this. I'm Dina, member. Of Lakewood. Village, a neighborhood association that's in the fifth District Life. Lifelong resident of Long Beach. 24 year resident of Lakewood Village. And I strongly urge you to not deviate from the current l'ue a l'ue recommendation of two storey commercial to mixed use residential. For Park View Village. That's the corner. Of Bel Air and Carson. I attended both visioning sessions held by the property owner. Ben Efron, whose. Owns approximately 52% of the Park Village property. According to him, his vision he wants to put up to up to 240 living residents. Above. Four storey commercial units. He claims that that would be less crowded than if he goes to commercial. That is a ridiculous statement. And if he puts in residential, it will only have to put in one parking. Spot for. Every unit. Where will the rest of the car park? Simple on our streets, long story short. Lakewood Village is a great area and people enjoy the peaceful lifestyle it provides with the prospect of 500 more people crammed into four acres. That life story will be changed forever. We will. Wait. We will be. Faced with more traffic on our streets, less available parking to an already parking challenged neighborhood because of City College and all the apartments and the strain on city services. This is only a money grab by the property owner, the developer, and it will have a horrific impact on our village and it will destroy our community. Thank you for your time. I appreciate all of your hard work. Thank you so much. Next speaker. Please. My name is Rick Ivey. I'm vice president. Illustrious Neighborhood Association. One of the things we have is we have a smaller eighth district proposed place type map view that a number of citizens got together and worked on and we presented it to the mayor. It seems like we've got large swaths going up and down Long Beach Boulevard and Atlantic all the way down to the ocean with housing. It would be nice. Bixby Knolls is kind of unique. It's got first Fridays. It's a great area. If we had that section the eighth as a commercial corridor so that we can have something a little bit unique. As we go up up there, we've tried to have a commercial office medical corridor on Long Beach Boulevard and mixed use between Bixby and San Antonio might not necessarily facilitate that. Also, some of the office buildings around Atlantic and San Antonio would be nice to see that preserved as commercial. There's a number of other proposals for North Long Beach, and we'd appreciate you considering these. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Larry Tration. Just like at the Planning Commission when I got to talk almost last night. I'm really hungry and really tired and probably won't make sense. I'm I know that the city faces not just the city, but the region faces a tremendous housing crisis. There's according to the Los Angeles Times, 58,000 homeless people in our region. And so it does need to be dealt with, but there is a reasonable way to do it and an unreasonable way to do it, I think. And by the way, I used to work here, so hello to some of my old friends. I, I live in Bixby Knolls, a district driving down here this evening, coming down Long Beach Boulevard. I could see really there's lots of opportunity for development and Long Beach Boulevard south of Willow. It could use a nice development, but I think that three storey buildings on Atlantic Avenue and four storey buildings on Lambert Boulevard, I don't think that is the answer. And I was thinking back, you know, l one day, the last election cycle, you came by my house and you asked me to vote for you. I wasn't going to, but you talked me into it. I hope you remember that when you addressed this issue this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, City Council. Mayor, I live in Long Beach for three years. I went from a condo in Second Street to a home in Lakewood Village in the fifth District. My wife has raised I was raised in Long. Beach and is now a teacher in the U.S.. In. Long Beach School District and in the north Long. Beach area. We both live and work in the city of Long Beach, as do many young teachers that she works with. One of the major draw is to let. To let us to settle in Long Beach was the ability that we would be able to have a home and a piece of land. There's a great potential in our neighborhood. And this could be changed by a a. Unit being changed from mixed use. From commercial to mixed use. Please don't allow our neighbor to be changed and not allow our chance to develop and grow into. A good unit of land that could. Share and have a place for our children to grow old in. Thank you guys for your time. Thank you very much. Next week, please. Jennifer Wang, fourth district resident. Hello, Mayor. Councilman. So, Pranav and the rest of the city council members. Thank you for your time. I'm also an urban planner. I wish to acknowledge the work by staff in this process. However. The discrepancy of the document stating gradual height increase is problematic throughout the city. Single family. Homes will have. Unintentional peeping toms looking into their backyards because the height difference. Between single family and proposed. Four and five storey buildings. As it stands in the land use element, unless there are. Proper buffers where all the taller buildings with two storey buildings. Around single family homes to claim buffer is. Not true. I'm also a real estate investor. As an investor, I question. The quality of potential development because. There are not the jobs that are usually required for class-A rentals. Focus on economic development. Then you'll have amazing housing. I lived in San Francisco for eight years. All those housing didn't happen because of the land use element. They happened because of jobs. Developers need to jump through the hoops and pay to build excellent housing, complete with affordable units. Lastly, as a homeowner with a young child and I want to acknowledge my husband who's staying at home so I can be here, I have witnessed the increase of rentals in my neighborhoods and I want to see that continue. But we need better. Affordable housing units and better complexes. Thank you. So much. Next speaker. Good Eve. Evening, everybody. Thank you very much, Mayor, for having the roundtable. I'm so happy I had an opportunity to express myself publicly or privately. I don't know. Anyway, my name is Laurie Enjoyment Live at 458 East Platt Street in North Long Beach. I've been very active in North Beach since 1996 and involved in redevelopment. We put together a strategic plan for North Long Beach. We did this over a period of six years. I know the area very well and I'm completely shocked by the Louis. It is completely contrary to what we had planned. We did not want this level of density. I don't know why it's there where it came from. We have four storey buildings encroaching on my little tiny neighborhood of homes built in the twenties. We have 600 square foot homes that we're going to put in four storey buildings. There is no room on Market Street. There are no room. There's no room in our streets for two cars to pass. I do not understand why we are putting in this level of density. It makes no sense. It isn't right. It isn't fair. And you know, if you want to give people a good living experience, you don't throw them all in a box and make it so dense that they can't hardly survive. It's already a high crime area. I want it to thrive and improve. We do not make need to make it more aggravated and more difficult for people to live. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you, Mayor, for inviting me to the roundtable. I'm Colonel Sanders, president of College Triangle Neighborhood Association. And I want to begin by saying I grew up in Los Angeles City, so I understand what urban challenges exist. I can talk to you about Ramona Gardens and Maravilla and the consequences that spilled into the neighborhoods. I can talk like some. You come from poverty. You work hard. You get through school. You don't have any expectations. You're given an opportunity. You finally become a homeowner. And after many years and there's nine of you that represents 500,000 people. I'm I'm lifted by Robert Fox and the other community leaders we're branded where we've together as a city because we love this city. I think at our meeting I let you know there's a covenant, something we all believe in. Is there breach of that covenant. Or is it only a contractual. Agreement? Again, this is going to galvanize us in a way that the city has not seen in 25 years. And I think it'll really raise questions as to what is our trust level in our leadership. I surely hope that you do listen to our needs. If anything, it does invite at a grassroots level the people who are volunteering and making our communities better after the 1989 position to rise and maybe consider running. So thank you and reconsider your vote. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hello, I'm Linda Schall, and I'm a 20 year resident, District two. I'm in a high density building. I like high density building. I don't have a problem with that. The issue that we have heard, having gone to all the meetings, the mayor meetings, reading the entire land use element and reading the Environmental Impact Report and watching who showed up at all the meetings among you. And we really appreciate those of you who shown up to multiple meetings because you get an opportunity to. Really understand the things that you wouldn't. Understand otherwise, just as. I wouldn't have understood if I didn't go to other. Meetings and hear the issues of our neighbors. Simply put, this is not an issue where we're worried about not having affordable housing and how we're going to solve it. We need to solve affordable housing. We need development. But this is an issue where we're talking about trying to solve an overcrowding in housing, inside housing, by overcrowding the outside of the housing. And what we want a city, that city of quality of life and the ability to move. The ability to park. The ability to have friends over and to have each of you think about that as the overwhelming majority of the people who have come out have talked about the concern of overcrowding in our city. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. City Council. We need to build. We need to grow. We need more housing. But if we move forward with this land use element the way that it is, we will be playing chess without the Queen. We will lose before we even begin this game. The truth is, crime is not caused by high density. It's caused by inequity. And inequity has been structural. It's been systematic, whether it's been gender, race, economics. And so the way same way that it's been systematic, in order for us to unravel that inequity, we have to be smart and understand that this land use element is the root and the foundation of equity. We have to deal with housing, but we also have to look at small businesses. We've got an economic blueprint that calls for inclusion, but we have not addressed how our small businesses are going to coexist in these new developments. The cost per square footage we have to address not only housing in homelessness. The truth is this land use element has no affordable housing, and it's going to have to split between subsidized housing. Section eight housing. There has to be thought process. The developers that. Want to play ball. Will play ball with Long Beach. We do not have to move the way they want us to move. And so what I ask and I sent some of you the plan is I ask that you ask city staff to come back with an equity piece that addresses also protecting our historic sites. We I'm president of VIP records and I'll wrap up mayor. We had to battle to save a historic. Site because of a. Lack of a proper land use element and ordinance. And those costs are inner cities a great deal. So I just ask that you consider equity moving forward. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Anna Kristensen. The. Long Beach Area Peace Network, has voted to oppose the land use element as presented and approved by the Planning Commission and presented to the Long Beach City Council tonight. We oppose the Alawi not because we are against high density housing. We are not against the elderly. Because we're afraid of poor. People moving in to the east side. We oppose the UAE for two main reasons. Number one, there is no. Guarantee in this land use element for low income and or affordable housing. This is going to be left up to the city staff. We believe the UAE is a way to gentrify some neighborhoods with no assurance of a low income or affordable housing in less prosperous neighborhoods or elsewhere. Building expensive housing will not lead to better affordability, just more displacement out of coastal areas. The construction of 4000 new units has actually reduced affordable housing in downtown Long Beach. The proposed we may profit. The developers, but it will not will do so at the expense of. Long Beach residents, both high and low income. Number two, the low cerritos wetlands have great cultural significance for. Local tribal. Peoples. We oppose the UAE because it includes the c separate rezoning of these wetlands, which are a wildlife sanctuary as well. It incorporates also a. Massive expansion of a hazardous industrial zone and in the low cerritos oil consolidation and. Restoration Project. Thank you. All right. Thank you for safe. Next speaker, please. My name is Rene Lawler. I'm a native. Of Long Beach. I live in the seventh District. My address is on file, as well as my many affiliations on. To save time, I'm going to say ditto to all of the many community leaders who have opposed to the elderly and who have been on record for many, many times with significant comments. What that does is it allows me as no surprise to most of you here to talk about a specific issue, and that is the equestrian zone. I'm sure if there was a raise of hands, many people would see that. I've spoken out about this multiple times. The equestrian zones are still committed. We're not on the map. We're still not on the map. When? When I got a response of asking why I was told that we are actually recognized and that the earlier we continue as a policy to protect and maintain that that's not the case. If you look at the matrix table on the the alleyway. We're not in the matrix table. Our zoning is not included. We, of course, can't speak for ourselves. Density does not work well with equestrian. Our zoning is a lesser density than found in and contemporary. There is more than just one equestrian zone. None of them have been recognized, including the only parcels we need to be included. Inclusion means every community in our community is not included. Thank you. Next speaker, please. How's it going? My name is Jason. I'm under 30, so I think an underrepresented demographic here. But anyway. I just wanted to come out and let you guys know that I am in support of land use element. But I really is not as ambitious or as for forward thinking as Long Beach could be. I'd like to echo the need for affordable housing, but again, more density. Long Beach can be a world class city when you go to places that are world class cities Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, they don't have these types of concerns there. They're happy to have the vibrant density that dense, vibrant city life that density brings. I certainly do kind of counter what one person said. I am a city planner. I went to school. I got a degree I cannot afford. I could barely afford rent. And I definitely can't afford to own to own a home here. So that type of thing. I don't know, maybe, you know. Your mileage varies by person, but I just I'd like to speak in support of that. And I really strongly suggest that you go back and you be more ambitious. It's really important to keep in mind the gravity of the decision you're making tonight. It's not for a lot. Of the people in the room. It's for my generation. It's for the people that come after me. The majority of the people coming to California at this point in time, according to this Legislative Analyst's Office, are not actually coming here. They're being born here, their children, the future generation. California is losing more people than it's gaining, again, according to the State Legislative Analyst's Office. So keep that in mind when you make this decision and try to be involved as you can. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is John County. I live in the fourth district. I've come to the meetings in the city has mostly been tone deaf to what we've been saying. After the other meetings removed a couple of spots from the maps that got the most complaints. But you haven't listened to the rest of us. This plan, your prose will change your lives. I live near a community hospital. If it closes in the near future, which it might through having problems there in the small buildings around it were too close. We could be looking at hundreds of units without sufficient parking in an area that is already impacted. Many of the cars would be racing down my street in the morning at night to avoid the main streets. You keep saying we need to make more room for everyone. To enjoy the great city of Long Beach. But if you kill off the quality of life in the suburbs, parts of the city. We won't have the city we are here for. You haven't been listening to us. Your own planning commission has just told us developers can build certain units without a parking requirement. We all acknowledge the cracker box. Cracker boxes were a complete mistake. Building tall buildings and single family areas are wrong. The plan you propose has. The neighborhood surrounded by tall buildings. The high density creates problems. The plan will affect all the homes near them, even if not next to them. I came here tonight in hopes you will listen to us. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Clare Conti and my address is 4139. East 15th Street. I'm a middle class, full time working wife, mother and proud to call Long Beach my home for the past 33 years. We are where your traditional hard working Long Beach family. Two kids attending college in Long Beach, working part time, both living at home to save money. We live a couple of blocks south of Long Beach Community Hospital, I'm. Proud to say. My neighbors on. My block of 15th Street are homeowners and renters. Caucasian, Hispanic, Cambodian. African-American, straight. Gay, young. Elderly, married, single, divorced or widowed. You name it. We've got it. And we like. It this way. All. We all choose to live in this area because of the neighborhood, our neighbors in the surrounding area. Unfortunately, over the past few years, we have experienced crime, increased traffic, congested every morning and evening, and parking in the area is packed and impacted daily. What you continue to propose for our surrounding area with all your so-called medium density housing, with its insufficient available parking, will radically change my neighborhood. If you build it. They will come. And not all from Long Beach. They're going to continue to move into Long Beach from areas outside of long reach, bringing with them their cars. I've made a copy of you for all of you indicating the location of my house. Thank you. Plan. Please take note of how your plan will be impacting my neighborhood. Thank you. Listen to the individuals. Thank you for your time. Next, speaker. Wilson. Where should I. Put this city clerk? Thank you. Certainly. Next speaker, please. My neighbor, she lives right across the street from me. My name is Judy Davidson. Bronchoscopy. I live on 15th Street, right across the street from her, and I'm in the fourth District. My concern is the traffic and the increase in traffic that I already see. The traffic element has not been updated, I understand, for about three years and in consideration we'd like to have that changed. We'd like to have the traffic. Have a traffic. Study that comes and creates and shows what this density growth is going to do. We need to have a report, a structural report showing what the traffic is going to do in our area. Also, we'd like to have an engineer update. We'd also like to include required setbacks. So in the future, Long Beach can have mass transit. There is a gentleman called. Peter Tilden. He is on KABC on the radio every day. He lives in West Los Angeles. He said the other day he had to go and make a presentation for Shaq. I think we all know who Shaq is. He lives in West L.A. He had to go to Hollywood. It's about an hour and 15 drive. I was up I worked up there. So I know the area well. Well, thank you for. Thank you. It took him 2 hours and 45 minutes to get there because of all the building that is going on in L.A.. Thank you. Next week, a police. How's it going? My name is and I can say I am a. Resident of the sixth district. I live in the sixth district. I've been a lifelong resident there. I also live in reality, which, you know, the last couple hours. So it seems like the rest of the people in here, they don't. But maybe in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show. But I bring that up because living in reality and being a young person, I'm probably going to be alive in the next 20 years. So this directly impacts my life and maybe not the most of you. And, you know, high density is reality. You look at any metropolitan made major metro excuse me, you look at any major metropolitan market in the country and in the world. And high density is something that. City planners and new urban designers across the. Across the world are recognizing as inevitable. You know, 1980, the average home median home price in Los Angeles. County was. $95,000. And today in 2017. It's 600, it's almost 600,000. So this reality, you know, a lot of these and other stories of, you know, pull yourself by your bootstraps and taken ten years out of your life to save for your family. That's not a reality for a lot of the young people of today. And that's not a reality for your, you know, your children, your grandchildren. You know, it's very unfortunate that we're having people who aren't going to be alive. You know, the majority of the people are going to live with this is going to really impact. But the youth, we're not going to be allowed to be participating. Thanks very to. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Oh. Something awful happened. I really I don't probably don't need it. Sorry. The clock hasn't started. Okay. Thank you. Mayor Garcia, members of the City Council. My name is Dani Sievers and I reside on this street in the third district. My home is located in the Bluff Heights neighborhood. The boundaries of the neighborhood are Redondo Avenue on the West, one through on. These fourth on the North and Broadway on the. South. My purpose in speaking tonight is to add to the conversation regarding the protecting of the 17 historic neighborhoods in Long Beach. While I appreciate the need. For increased housing, I do. Believe that the integrity of our historic neighborhoods are at a critical junction. The historic neighborhood of Bluff Heights and the other 16 historic neighborhoods would be so negatively. Impacted by. Additional structural highways that. Essentially. It would be destroying the character. Defining elements of our historic communities. Are Bluffs Heights Neighborhood has a map on our website that includes all of our contributing neighborhoods. I'm going to go ahead. I'm sorry. It's hard to skip around. I'm just going to make one final comment. In particular. I want to point out that on. Cordoba. Place, there's a small street that faces Broadway. It's a historic neighborhood is facing also that not very historic Taco Bell. But currently on Corto Place. The map shows it as being three stories. I hope that you could walk our neighborhood and see that we have only one and two story neighborhoods, and I hope that you'll be able to preserve. Protect the. Historic neighborhoods and make any adjustments that you can to protect not only my neighborhood. But the other 16 historic neighborhoods. Thank you for your time. So let's fix the mic next speaker, please. Good evening. It's the first time I've ever addressed the city council. My name is Dave Shukla and I grew up in town. I'm the son of the fighting third. Thank you for your patience tonight. I'm here to urge you to do better with the outreach for the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. As you know, I'm a municipal climate policy is essential for the future of a city with our unique set of climate drivers and climate risks. As Paulie alum, University of California alum with an urban planning background, I look forward to working with you folks on how to do that. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Brian Darren. I'm actually from the first district in a Gonzalez's district. Also come from the second district. In the city of Long Beach. I've actually. Served on the Commission on Youth and Children. For the second District. And also it was Robert Garcia's I'm sorry, who is about Foster is no longer mayor, but also interned there. I have to say, this is a little bit embarrassing. I mean, it looks like. Most of the generation wants to keep us not building anything. Just look at it. We are $20 trillion in debt. We continue to kick the can down the road. We do not want to build. And this is a mistake. I don't come to these type of meetings. This is important that you build more. I don't care with these other homeowners who want to keep their neighborhoods historic, want to do. Let's be honest about some things. Yes. I'm talking to all of you. Let's be honest about a couple of things. We need to build in home prices are going up. This is important. As a loan officer in L.A. County, I see directly. How home values are rising crazily. Do we want to give that money to banks through interest, or do we want to build so we can have actual communities? It does involve density. People want to live here. That is a good thing. You know, I'm not some. Crazy Republican either. I'm a liberal Democrat. We need to build in Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Okay. Meanwhile, so thank you council members for letting me speak in. Mayor before. She's not here today, but right now. But thank you for the speech. I know it's frustrating right there. Go for it. Oh, okay. Sorry. So I'm resident in eighth district. I've been here for past 14 years, and I think it's important that the young people talk about this issue as well. I'll admit originally and thank you, Mr. Austin, for letting me participate in a focus group for the eighth District closed session. And I said that I originally supported the new settlement, but and that's because I think we need a plan for the city, and I think that we need more housing. I think that's necessary. But I just I'm not confident in this specific land use element. I think that it has been mired by confusion and by stumbling by staff. And I'm not attacking staff. I'm just saying that I'm worried about the Laney settlement. And if this is going to affect my future, I shouldn't be worried as much as I am. I think that it should be a five year plan and a 20 year plan. I disagree with staff there, and overall, I think that we need a better version of this, and especially not one that is certainly going to be changed by the council and rightfully so. It should be more transparent and I'm just not supporting the nation as it is right now. So thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Donna Faye and I am the owner of romance, etc. And we just recently moved from the third district. To the fifth District. And my concern there is a development that's going to be affecting where I just moved, and they're talking about going. Vertical at that location with more housing. I don't feel. That it's the proper spot for it, but my biggest concern is if you decide that that is what you want to do parking. Parking and parking. It is a crucial thing. I left the third district. And my business, which was greatly affected by rents being driven up. I went up to about $16,000 a month and said Enough. I am now currently paying like hardly anything, 20 $500 a month. I have my life. Back, my family's life back. I. I actually can breathe. I have a day off. 15 years of no days off. And I work really hard. And I think that it's really important to know that. Building has to have parking. Bella Terra They built housing and parking. There's not enough parking. Now they're rezoning across the street and almost taking a building. For 45 years, the lady owned and making it not present anymore. And that's what's going to happen. In the city. We keep letting this happen. Thank you for your testimony. Next speaker, please. Good evening, everyone. Mayor, councilmembers, staff, and all the people who showed up for this event. I am truly appreciative of the efforts that everyone has made to improve this plan and to try and have a vision for our future. But. There's one thing that I'd like the council to remember when you're deliberating on this. This will have the biggest impact of any decision that you will ever make in this office. The 20 year plan for the use of land will basically determine the fate of the city. And. 30 years ago when this plan was being considered by your predecessors, their primary concern was quality of life. And I know this because I was around then and I remember them saying that quality of life was their primary concern. I think that should also be our primary concern. But the difference between now and then is that it impacts even more people and the system is even more complex. It's going to take five years to figure out what impact this plan will have, and that's the time frame that you need. A 20 year time frame won't allow us to make course corrections, and even one year might not be enough for that. So please. Focus on what's doable in a few years. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Joe Peralta. I live in the fifth district. I live at 3048. Petaluma. I am 76 years old. For 54 years, I got up every morning and went to work. I have an insurance policy that would blow your mind away medically. Even doctors go. How'd you get that? Because I paid for it. No, I broke my appendix 715 to 17 years ago. Went to Memorial. Hospital. Four days later. They operated on me because of all the people in the emergency room. You are not prepared to handle all these people. And of course, there's little thing that I have as a hobby. I, at 15 years old, belong to the California Archeology Society. I know you know where all the earthquake faults are. Because the hospital that you're going to have to knock down. And you're going to be able to handle all these people. I don't think so. I don't think you've. Thought this out. You can't even handle what you got now. And by the way, I've been here so long that Eldorado Park as a kid, I used to feed pheasants. Corn. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Thank you so much for your time. My name is Lisa Cotto and I can't say it better than than somebody, the people that have spoken tonight, one of which I just want to back up my friend Mike Clemson, about an hour and 45 minutes ago said we we have to support growth. We will have more people, whether we like it or not. If we don't plan, we will just have more homelessness and higher prices and less affordable housing. I also want to back up what Anna Christensen said of Long Beach Peace Network regarding actually guaranteeing affordable housing of the new housing and preventing renters from being priced out. And I want to add that one thing I have not heard is mandating multistory parking, which is something that if we're going to have the density, whether we like it or not, we really do have to have multistory parking. Developers don't want to put that in because it's really expensive to put in. But it is something if you mandate it, they will they will do it. And also permeable surfaces for recharging groundwater aquifers. We have to think about the environment. We have to think about what a dry state we are and plan for that and something that is not so expensive to put in. We have to put in more trees to ameliorate the pollution, noise and heat island effect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next week at least. Hi. My name is Tanya Comerford. Thank you for your time. And I'm a homeowner. In the fifth District and I moved here in 2003 from my favorite city, San Francisco. And what attracted me here was the diversity. And right away I had done Peace Corps in Africa. And came here and started. Grass root organizing and community development. And so that's something that I'm very. Passionate about and. With all that being said, I am. For developing our community, but not sacrificing our community. And I'm not in favor of lieu in. Its current incarnation and hope. That you. I know you've heard this. It's redundant, but I'm here. Just want to. Reiterate. Affordable housing. I'm a fan of rent control. And just developing our. Community and. In a manner that works best for all. Of us. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Next speaker, please. Hello. Hello, everyone. My name is Chris Stackhouse. And, um, basically, from the inception of the city of Long Beach, it's always been a suburb of metropolitan Los Angeles. Yet it's the 36th most populous city in the U.S., seventh most populous city in California, and second largest city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and third largest city in Southern California, based on unsophisticated cities, pretty large as it is. So my question is how much growth how much more growth can the city sustain? Thank you. Thank you. And it looks like our final speaker. Drum roll, please. Thank you for. My name is TVC, my baby. Thank you, everyone, for speaking. Everyone for listening. I work in the public within the city have been for over a decade and lived here much longer. I mean, someone, if not five people a week, they're moving to the city to their face. Talk to them about their stories. I thank you for your vote on the land use element. Thank you. And that concludes public comment. Okay. The hearing continues. So now as part of the hearing deliberations, we closed the public comment hearing piece and will be moving back to council deliberation and any action that the council would like to take. And we I'm going to make some a couple of general comments here in just a minute. And then what we're going to go ahead and do is each councilmember has some comments to make and is going to be addressing their council district individually. And so that's how we'll kind of go go through this process and we'll be starting with Council District one and we'll just just to make it organize. We'll just go down. And Councilmember, I want to make comments. We'll just go down all the way down until we get to the vice mayor. So let me let me just make a couple comments. I want to I want to say first is I do want to thank everyone that is here tonight and everyone that that was here. We had a very packed house, as you all know. And there's actually a lot of people actually streaming and watching this right now from their homes as well. And so just to everyone that that's been engaged. I do want to thank them. I also just think it's important to know that it's okay to have different opinions and a diversity of viewpoints. And I want to make sure that everyone's opinion is respected and everyone's opinion is important. And one thing that I believe is what regardless of one's position on the land use element, whether you are a homeowner or whether you came as an advocate for building more housing is everyone loves Long Beach and I reject this idea that somehow because you have a certain position, you don't love your community or you don't want people to be part of our community. And so I just want to make sure everyone here, my belief is that we are entitled to have our opinions and our belief systems. And I want to thank all of you for vocalizing what you believe here tonight and throughout the entire process. I there's a couple of people I want to thank before we go into the deliberations, because I think it's important. I want to first just start off by thanking the staff. Now, I know that they're getting beat up a lot in this process by the community, by the council, but they're also incredibly hard working. And I do want to thank you for if you saw the presentation, whether you agree with all the assessments or the assumptions the staff has made. They have worked very hard in this process. And I want to thank the staff for for their hard work. So thank you. Thank you for doing that. I also want to thank the Planning Commission, who also has gone through their own process. The chair of the Planning Commission is here tonight, which is Eric Produce CO, who's over here. And if you have been following the land use element process, the Planning Commission has been very engaged and actually made some significant changes as well as took public input. And so I'm very proud of the work that the Council is doing. The Planning Commission has had the the football, so to speak, this entire time and has just passed it off to us in the last couple of months. And so to the Planning Commission, thank you for your hard work and we appreciate the great work that you guys have done. I and I want to thank everyone that's come out to speak at any of the forums or roundtables or conversations. Now, there. There have been a lot of meetings have gone on for many years, but the intensity of most of those have really happened in the last six months to a year. That's when a vast majority of people have been engaged. And I want to say, just for the record and staff knows this. I'm often asked, was this process how was the public process? What are your opinions of it? To me, it's an easy answer. The city can do a lot better and we should have done a lot better in engaging the public. There is no question that that I believe and I think staff will be the first to share that. They have also learned some lessons in a process that is this big and how we can all do a better job of engaging the community in a way that's appropriate and thoughtful and that really listens and takes input. And so I do think it's important as mayor for for for me to let you know that there is no question that the city has learned from this process. And I think the staff and that's I include myself all the way down to all of our planning staff. I think that this your input has made the process better. Let me also just add, I think there were some comments and questions about who's participating and who's not and who's invited to things. And I just want to be clear. There have been numerous public meetings. There have been numerous meetings, have been roundtables. And I've met personally with a variety of different organizations. I want to begin to Robert and to Kono. I want to thank them for their engagement. Whether you agree with the positions that that that that the organization has put out or not, they engaged thousands of people in the process. And and and I personally and I've told this I don't agree with everything that that I hear all the time from some members of the group or Mr. Fox or anybody else. But you have to appreciate every person matters in our community. So the fact that thousands of people showed up with a strong opinion. I value that and I appreciate that. And I think that's a good thing for the city of Long Beach. I also want to say that the roundtables we had in one in every district, and those were people that were suggested, not just from Kono, but from every single member of the city council. Every single member of the city council suggested and invited folks to those roundtables. So this idea that there were somehow these closed groups is just false and untrue. They were open to to input from everyone. And in those roundtables, of which we had nine. I will tell you that I personally learned a lot. I listened. I, I really value what people had to say. And I also value when someone has put, whether it's their livelihood into their property, in their home, or whether they're putting their blood, sweat and tears to try to make a living to pay the rent every single month. Those voices all matter, and one voice shouldn't matter more than the other. They all matter as part of our community. And I and I appreciate every single one. But I also want to thank the other groups that came to the table. I want to thank building out the communities of which I met with all of them. And there and the housing advocates one on one neighbors. I see Moana and Lee in the audience. I think the three of us early on had some time with just the three of us, chatted for a while about the land use element , and I had a chance to meet one on one with many neighbors across the city. And I want to thank you for their time. I want to thank the students at Long Beach who also reached out and so many others that the land use process, as you've probably heard and are aware and the general planning process is a state mandated process. None of us woke up one day and said, you know, let's go through this incredibly difficult land use planning process. And because we love sitting in meetings for for five or 6 hours, we are rising to a mandate of putting a general plan in place. And the land use piece of that is what we're going through now. Now what that looks like, it can look very different. And certainly people have different ideas of whether we should be doing this or not. I have been one that I believe in. I support and strongly believe that we have to move forward and plan for the future appropriately and where and where we believe we can move forward as a city together. I want to say two things. There's two things that have come up, and one of which I want to mention today that I have learned also through this process how one a few years ago I've been and I've been an advocate for building in the downtown for many years. In fact, a few years ago, most a lot of folks said there was a terrible idea we shouldn't build one more unit of housing. And the building of a downtown was bad. We shouldn't build more housing. We push forward. We're building 4000 units in the downtown. And the one thing that's been heartening to me was out of this process, there has been a new citywide consensus that has been formed, which is that most people now believe that we should be building in the downtown. And that wasn't the case a few years ago. And so I am I am glad that the city has, in my opinion, come together and are now behind this idea that, yes, we can and should build in the downtown for new people moving in, for young professionals, for seniors, for students, for working, for working people, affordable housing. Just that whole mix. And that's been a consensus that is that has been formed. Have you also heard me talk a lot about building a opportunity for housing up and down our metro system? I support that, especially when it comes to affordable housing for seniors, which we're building much of. And tonight, I think you're going to hear some opportunities for modest growth in other places in the city, which you're going to hear from each of our council members tonight. But I want to I want to thank you through this process. I do believe that we have the plan that we should plan and plan for the future. But I also believe that Long Beach is also a built out community. And yes, we can build, but we can also only do so much. And when you're surrounded by cities on every side and water, we can do our part, but we will never. And I want to be clear with everyone. Those numbers are the state sets for us every year. The goal, we will never meet those numbers. We have. We haven't met them and we will never meet them because in my opinion, they are an unrealistic expectation of what we can do as a community. And so we will do our part. We will develop appropriately, we will protect neighborhoods and historic districts. But I just hope moving forward that we can work together as this process moves throughout the next few years, as the zoning piece is also communicated. And so I just want to thank all of you for your input. And I want to turn this over to the city council who will go through their recommendations. And I'm going to start with Council District one, Councilwoman Gonzales. Thank you. Yes, thank you so very much. This has been a really great discussion among all. But I also know that there's been a lot of back and forth, differing opinions, as the mayor said. And I'll start by saying that I want to thank everyone for being a part of the process, staff and community. My staff attended nearly every meeting, and I also put together a District one meeting among the leaders in in the downtown area and central area. So we were happy to have them a part of that. I appreciate staff as well. So a couple cleanup items. I'll have some notes to talk about and then I will also provide a couple late recommendations. So a couple cleanup items, first for District one for the current LLC map. So the first item is to please correct the maps to indicate that both shades of the purple blue within the Todd, M and Todd areas surrounding the Linden Roosevelt area, which is North Anaheim to PCH from Elm Avenue to Atlantic Avenue, that they reflect the proposed five storey height and not the ten storey height adjacent to it, which is actually the Midtown Plan. Number two, please ensure that Peace Park with which is adjacent to the Roosevelt Linden neighborhood, that it is part of the updated map for visibility purposes. So those are my two amendments to the current map. Now, I'll tell you, I'm a downtown council members of a very different perspective. And many of you who I've heard, you know, whether it's social media or what have you, a lot of you have spoken. Not not all of you. But I've heard a lot of negativity about my neighborhood, in my residents neighborhood in which I represent. And it's hard to hear that. I can't help but feel a little bit taken aback by it, because our city, I know, is absolutely better than that. And I understand the concerns. I get it. Change is very difficult. We dealt with that in downtown and it was very difficult even then for downtown was where we sort of expect a lot of high density to come in. But 95% of my district is spoken for with the downtown plan and the Midtown Plan. But I care about all of Long Beach because I have three boys at home. One is going to college. We just looked at Cal State, Long Beach. I drove around. I found, you know, there's really no place even for them to study outside of the city or outside of the school. I have a little three year old and an 11 year old, so I know that the needs for me as not just a council member, but as a parent are there. And I know we have to figure something out. So what we've done in the First District is we have actually worked specifically with when we're talking about needs such as parking, we're actually looking at localized parking plans for some of our most impacted districts are areas and I urge my council colleagues and I know that they will because I've heard from many of them within my my realm that we can that they that we will have to create that park. Lies park. I'm sorry. Localized parking plan. That's very late. For instance, we are looking at a preferential parking district in the Roosevelt neighborhood, preferential parking districts in the Craftsman neighborhood, as well as the West Gateway neighborhoods. And this is all despite what happens here tonight. So I think that, you know, we'll certainly hear more of that today. And I just want to include I just want to make sure overall that the we pass a fair and inclusive levy that is mindful of current thoughts and ideas while looking and planning for the future. As we've heard, downtown has in fact strengthened for the better. Due to our downtown plan, our median income levels are increasing with both market rate and affordable units that are offering a unique retail mix for our downtown residents. Have you been along Pine Avenue, which is where I live, actually with increased density. We have had businesses such as Pie, Bar, Romeos, Chocolates, Studio 111 that has offered us over 100 architects with very high income levels coming to downtown and our city's very first distillery Portuguese band. We would not have experienced this without additional units of appropriate housing options and strong a strong guide for good development. To add to this, our planning commission was provided with a great equity analysis relative to the value, and I want to thank building healthy community communities for bringing that forward and letting us know about that. And that was actually created by both development services and Health and Human Services. And it speaks to a multitude of equity issues. And one spoke to me more than ever, and it said, quoted in the analysis, Despite being the second most diverse city in California, Long Beach has one of the highest rates of segregation in the state . Allowing new housing opportunities only in certain parts of the city will continue to perpetuate and likely worsen the geographic, economic and racial divides that separate our city. So I just want us to think about that. And in the equity analysis, we also know that the western portion of our city is home to actually over 3000 units of affordable housing, which is about 60% of all affordable units in the entire city. And my district alone is actually home to over 1700 units of affordable housing. And with that, our public safety numbers are getting better. And even with that, we're growing exponentially as a as a district. So recommendation number one that I have for the city manager is to report back at an appropriate time interval to the city council via whether that's a study session or an agenda presentation to include a status update of how we are progressing respective to the L'ue decision tonight, whatever that might be, as well as our progress in meeting the dire needs of both of housing, both for market and affordable housing, but particularly affordable housing, as we should have an equitable plan that provides a guide for affordable housing citywide. I know we're coming back with some housing components next Tuesday, but I know that we're we're looking at that. But I just need to make sure we say that. And in addition, I know the report should also include any and all changes to state law adjacent to this issue relative to local planning, zoning and any threats to local control. SB 35 and 8 to 7 are pretty scary as well as funding opportunities. We know that with the dissolution of RDA redevelopment was a big help to a district like mine because we had a lot of blighted communities and provided a lot of subsidies for affordable housing and resources for blighted areas. Perhaps there might be more funding for these communities. So I'd like us to track and advocate our at our state and local I'm sorry, state and federal legislative committees for more funding resources if we're being demanded. More housing options. And then number two, which I know others will speak about, is a formalized community process. What I will say is that what I've what we've lacked here in the city, even being a downtown councilmember, a lot of our downtown projects and even our North Pine residents in downtown with a plan will tell you that the process hasn't really been as transparent or as seamless as it could be. And we know that I believe Conor's mentioned this as well, that a lot of our lists in the neighborhood are antiquated. Oftentimes, the council offices have to be the first line to be able to provide context to development services or to whomever to be able to outreach to those groups. And I think it's really important we have some sort of formalized process to trigger more direct community input, because that is very, very important. We don't want to let any development go without a full process. So with that said, I want to thank everybody again. I hope we can remain positive in this sense. Do you have any questions you are feel. Please feel free to contact my office. We've been through the process. Contact my residents in North Pine. They'll give you a long history of what they've been through. But I have full faith that my council colleagues have heard each and every one of you and that they're going to make the best decision for you tonight. Thank you. Thank you. And then, Councilman, before we go to the next council district, we got action. Let me make sure the master motion is read. I know some people have it in front of them, but can Mr. Myers, can you just read the master motion? Yes, Mayor. The master motion is to recommend to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and confirm the proposed general plan, land use element and urban design element, place type and height maps and direct staff to update the program. Environmental Impact Report and increase appropriations in the Development Services Fund in the Development Services Department by $350,000, offset by funds available and may. Or would I suggest if the councilwoman for the First District wants to adopt that as her main motion, including the two points that she just raised. And since we're going to go district by district, each one of the districts could propose as a friendly amendment to the main motion, whatever is appropriate for their particular district. And then we'll have one unified motion at the end of the process. That's that's appropriate. And I know that there's already a motion on the floor by Vice me Richardson and Councilman Gonzales, which is the this motion. And we'll go and build the motion as we as we go. Okay. The vice mayor agrees with that. So we have that recorded for Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilmember Pierce. Okay. As late as it is, I really expect a public comment to go much later. I am surprised. I want to first to say how much I appreciate all the civic engagement here by everybody that's here that's watching at home, how much I appreciate staff. I had the honor of attending two of the larger community meetings, and I know that those were tough moments for residents and tough moments for staff. And I think this is going to while we go through struggle, we always come out stronger on the other side. And so this is a learning moment, as the mayor said. But we are going to come out as a community much stronger for this process. And I think understanding where our touch points are to have conversations, I typically don't read my talking points, but I'm going to try to do that today so that I don't miss anything . I do want to address the fact that several people here mentioned that renters are over 67% are renters, are high percentage of the city, but we're not equally represented in the process. And I want to highlight that that's simply not due only to the fact that staff didn't reach out or that Kono didn't reach out or that our council officers didn't reach out. But it's rather a fact of what happens with poverty and the fact that you have multiple jobs, you have child watch issues. And so it really does determine who shows up. And so we've had this conversation with city staff not only on this item, but on other items in the past around how we do community outreach. And so after today, I really want us to as a city and I'll ask my colleagues to come back and have a conversation around what is the systematic way that we engage with residents, not only homeowners or those that are available, but renters? Are we working with our schools to do that engagement? What is the most cost effective way to make sure that we have everybody at the table and and not the few? And so while I really appreciate the neighborhood associations that were very engaged in this process and called me every day and came to all six of my community meetings as well as the roundtable, they still represent ten people, still represent a small segment of those that are in their neighborhoods. And so really recognizing how hard it is to have everybody's voices at the table and that us as electeds really have to consider all sides, not only those that show up to speak, but those that are not able to come out. And so I want to go back to what the mayor mentioned and staff mentioned. Why land use element, 28,000 housing units are needed by 2040. And while we don't see a path to actually reach that goal, I want to also highlight that something that one of my colleagues brought up to us. If we were divide that out by all nine council districts, that would be 3000 plus in each district in the downtown, we have the downtown plan conversation in 2010, which I supported the density in downtown, but I didn't support the process. And so really finding out that whenever we have density in one area, we need to make sure that we have community benefits with that. And what that looks like for each neighborhood is very different. And so recognizing that each councilmember up here today will will say what they need for their district, I think it is important to highlight that not all the development can be in downtown. So while it says 3000 in each district in downtown alone and between the first and second district, we're already building 4000 new residential units. And we're going to build more because we need to be able to phase that density out to the neighborhoods and make sure that it's not just in blocks in one part of the city. I want to highlight the fact that we have seen the impacts of pro-growth policies without community benefits. And I think that's where we're seeing right now when we have the conversations around rental increases and we see that we have every day, every week I have people call me my office, email us and talk about their rent increases or the fact that they got a 60 day notice without any repercussion. And so looking at our housing policies, while they're not included in the land use element, it's really important that we as a city tackle those before we get to the first stage of this land use element. And so I'll address that in my motion at the end. But we have to be mindful, especially when we're considering this citywide. Give me 1/2. My history also includes being an advocate for increased access to affordable housing, access to parking and cleaner neighborhoods. As a resident of Alamitos Beach, I've lived in historic Rose Park as well, and I work in downtown, have a great understanding of my district. And we know that zip codes have a greater impact on your life expectancy than your genetic makeup. My district has a six year life expectancy difference between 10th Street and downtown. Proximity to jobs, schools and neighborhoods serving resources can have a positive impact on life expectancy and overall health. I'm fortunate enough to have a decade of community organizing that gave me the insight to know how Long Beach residents truly live. In my ten years, I've had the privilege of being an organizer with the hotel workers, and that gave me insight to families like Romeo, who live in the second district, that have a wife that has cancer, two kids and a bunk bed in the living room. It gave me the experience of visiting George, a port truck driver in the First District, who it also gave me the experience of delivering Christmas meals this past holiday as a councilmember to residents in my district. All of these experiences were not just overcrowding. They all had bunk beds in their living room. They didn't have a dining room table. They had a couch and bunk beds. When we talk about overcrowding, it's not two kids sharing a bedroom. It's people living really in a tight quarter that has a huge impact on our education system, on the health and well-being of our children. And so it is our responsibility to make sure that we are governing and planning for those most impacted. So that being said, I have a couple of areas to clear up. I have a couple of questions for staff. I'm going to start with let's see, what does my district care about most? Parking. Talk about parking. I know more than anybody that our district is mainly a parking impacted area. I want to clarify for those watching at home and those here, we had two comments. One is that we have 2.25 parking onsite required for all new two bedroom developments. But it was also mentioned that SB 35 parking is not required. How in the city are we addressing this and how is there a way for developers to get out of including parking since we have it as a requirement? Thank you for that question. I'd like to start by just acknowledging that the the parking is a part of the zoning code. And we talked about how the zoning code works in concert with the land use element. Essentially, the the proposed land use element, with its encouragement of new development, will actually provide additional parking that doesn't currently exist because where there's either a home that doesn't, a project that doesn't have parking or a vacant lot, there is the opportunity to provide housing through that parking, through that project. So what I'd like to talk about is specifically the state law, SB 35 and one of its requirements that it will allow parking through that streamline or I'm sorry, allow development through that streamlined process and it does not require parking. So in those cases, what I alluded to earlier is that in this city, we have never seen a new development, even when they are not required to provide parking, actually come forward and not provide parking because the demands of the market, the demands of the the either a for sale market or a rental market will require the developer to want to provide parking as a benefit to their residents. And they can also get a better price for that project if they can provide parking. So even though SB 35 allows a project to go forward without parking, we do not think that we would see that we will not see parking or projects without parking. And SB 35 is also generally consistent because current state law for affordable housing projects and what we're talking about in in SB 35 is a process to streamline affordable housing projects. Current state law already reduces the parking requirement for affordable housing projects. So and in essence, we don't think that there will be a significant difference under SB 35 from from what we currently generally experience in projects today. And if I can add, there's two components of SB 35. They're important. And Linda mentioned one of them, which is affordable housing. So in Long Beach, you have to have at least 10% is our trigger for affordable housing to be considered for streamlining. And then also the construction has to be paid for through prevailing wage, which is something that the developer is going to have to make a decision. Do they want to meet those two requirements before they're even available to streamline? So again, we we think it's something that'll be out there on the books, although most of the development that we see wouldn't meet those those two categories. Great. So just to clarify very simply, it's 2.25, unless it's an affordable housing unit that would fall underneath SB 35. And then they would have the option to not include parking, but they would also have to have prevailing wage. That's correct. I would also just point out that there are other fairly limited circumstances where you could have reduced parking, and that is in a density bonus. I talked earlier about a density bonus project that would not necessarily have taken advantage of SB 35. Those projects the developer can ask for a concession on the the parking great. And so that's a possibility. And also you mentioned a very specific parking ratio. And in the slide we showed earlier, based upon the location, if it's in a TOD area, they get a very slight reduction in parking. There's also reduced parking in downtown because of the grant submitted to transit. But other than those, the vast majority of the city for a typical development project, they would be required to provide that 2.5 for the two bedroom project. And so, Councilmember, what we see is for the vast majority of new development, it actually is going to help alleviate parking problems. I know that sounds a little counterintuitive, but if you have a property that is not currently parked where everyone's parking on the street because it only. Had a couple parking spaces. If that redeveloped all of the parking spaces, it was 2.25. A two bedroom are going to have to park off streets that they're going to to create actual parking within their development that they pay for. And that alleviates the parking for the rest of the neighborhood. Great. Thank you. And so I'm imagining my street. I live on Florida and you guys know Florida, it's packed, it's got single family and then it's got a couple of eight plex down the street and none of them have more than three parking spots. So this could be an area where we would have a good development, come in and actually create parking in our parking impacted area. So thank you for clearing that, clarifying that. I also want to highlight, you know, we are doing a lot of work on our preferential parking. I think Alameda speech is starting to I don't know if they're still here, but I think we're starting to gather signatures and start looking at that process in our neighborhood and try to do a pilot program and see if that works. And I know we have our parking study that's coming back sometime April, July, where we're going to be having those conversations about what else to do about this. So but this document itself is not the document to dictate parking, it is the zoning document. That's correct. I have another question. There's been a lot of conversations around historic districts and the question around what protections are in place for our historic districts. And I don't think I saw that in your presentation. I think you're a council member. So what we did. Throughout this process in terms of historic districts, of the historic districts, are noted on your maps. They're outlined in red. And the there is not a change in density whatsoever within the historic districts. So that was the starting point. So then throughout this process, we received a lot of public input, including from historic districts that are there in the second council district, Crossman Village, Rose Park, Rosa Parks out. And their concern was we had already said no change within their actual historic district. Their concern was what is adjacent to them. So then we went through with the Planning Commission, which had a very difficult job. So over the course of years we went through a process where we looked at streets like Seventh Street, where there there is a conflict that is an ideal street for our housing supply. It's a major bus corridor and staff's starting position was that that is a place for growth. But what we learned through the public process and the decision makers, the Planning Commission recommendation, was that that the tradeoff decision was that we needed it to value higher the concern of that adjacent historic district and look for other places to expand our housing supply. So we saw heights come down on places like Seventh Street, but then that doesn't mean nothing will change ever. On a street like Seventh Street, you could still do a three story building. So then you go into what's the companion piece to this, which is the urban design element, which has very specific policies about transitions, about landscaping. And so the difference between two stories and three stories, that's mathematically. There's no number in between the two, but it's it's still meaningful and important. So you're going to look at things like how windows are lined up. Can you push the bulk of the structure towards the major street, seventh Street in this case, and away from the historic district behind it? And those broad strokes strokes are outlined in the urban design element. But then we're going to go through this five year exercise to actually write the zone. What is this new mixed use zone that's not in our code today going to look like? And that's going to be an open community process, including representatives of the historic district. And we're going to hash out those details that we're asked about tonight. What is the exact set back? Because at ten feet or is it 11 feet? Is is it a 28 foot height limit? Is that a 31 foot height limit? And that's going to be different in your district than in a different district. So that's why we have to go through that that process geographically throughout the whole city. But that's the overall approach, and that's the journey that we've taken over the last several years for the historic districts. Great. Thank you so much for that. I want to address I have a handful of residents in my district that brought up climate change. And there was a couple of comments tonight. And so I just want to address the fact that the city is undergoing a climate action and adapt adaption plan in trying to meet our statewide targets that aim to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Next Tuesday on the agenda, we do have a request to increase our budget for this outreach. And so I want to make sure that constituents are paying attention today, know that this is an opportunity for us to talk about what that engagement looks like. And so whether or not we have increased density or we don't have increased density, the fact is the city still has that goal of meeting those reductions. And it is, I think, a lot of people's belief that density does help lower that. And so I look towards density and some of the changes here to help us meet that climate action goal. And I encourage people to reach out to my office. I've asked staff to make sure that we work closely on this process, that we're part of all the community meetings and outreach as well to the conversation around affordable housing. So similar to the conversation around parking, I believe that that conversation is going to be said that it's part of the zoning process and not necessarily part of the land use document. I do want to remind my residents and a lot of other folks that while this is not a requirement for affordable housing, we as a city have already stated on May 2nd, 2017, we adopted 29 housing policy recommendations designed to increase the production of affordable housing. What we're already doing is looking at a document recording fee that was already passed. Local bond measures, a density bonus. And I do want to say, I know that in this 29 recommendations, the density bonus, one of the comments in there was to try to do more outreach on that. The fact that we've only had one development use that since 2012 is really shocking to me. And so making sure that we as a city on those areas that want density, like in my district, that we are including that density bonus and doing the best work to bring in developers. That might not be the typical folks we get on Long Beach, but from L.A. that are used to doing some of this work. We're also encouraging preservation. So I think looking forward to the next month, we'll see some preservation items coming up, modifying the housing trust fund and regulating short term rentals. I do have grave concerns that increasing incentives for development without requiring, preserving or creating more affordable housing will equal more gentrification for residents. And so with that, I wanted to ask some questions of city staff on timing for some of these housing items. For the citywide inclusionary housing ordinance, I know that it's currently in the RFP stage. Can you enlighten us on the process and timeline for that? Yes, generally it is done through the RFP stage. A developer has been selected and over the next 3 to 5 months the that the work of that consultant will be underway. And we would expect that by I'm going to say late summer, we should be coming back to the city council with some preliminary recommendations. But in the interim, what we'd like to do to keep the council in the loop is periodically provide to far from updates just so that you're aware of what's going on and prior to bringing back a full blown recommendation is potentially have a study session, we would like to ultimately loop in the Planning Commission and get their feedback. So it'll be going to the Planning Commission in a study session and potentially coming to the city council for a study session and or a council action. And we again think that that would happen sometime late summer. Great. Thank you so much, Lynda, for that. I've got one more question. One of the other policy recommendations was to consider a one for one replacement in areas outside of the coastal zone. Is the city staff working on that right now? Is that a one for one housing replacement? Right. I understand that that is a. Policy, and I'd have to just confirm that with Patrick Ury. But my understanding is that that is something that his group, which is taking a lead on most of the housing policies that that something that they are they have underway. Okay, great. And I think we have something on the agenda next week on this. So I'll hopefully have some answers by next week on that. Okay. So let's see. I'm almost done, I think. Okay. Here we go. So I have my personal process outside of the community process has been six meet and greets. It has been the roundtable with the mayor and to the gentleman that made comments about us looking down earlier. I have a whole stack of comments from emails and letters that I was taking notes to try to make sure I captured and listening at the same time. So we get handed a stack of papers as soon as we sit down and as soon as you guys start talking. So it takes a little bit of multitasking. I know how frustrating it is to be in the audience and look up here and feel like people aren't paying attention because I sat in that seat for ten years. So apologies if it looks like we weren't paying attention. Know that I have been nothing but land use since I sat up here, so it's okay. So having had all of those conversations, having met with all of my community leaders, I do have several changes to our place type and height designations in several areas. And I want to say that this wasn't easy for me. I started off in the beginning with one vision of what I thought should be on Seventh Street and what I thought should be near our historic areas and really keeping in mind what we've done in the downtown and how great that's been, but also being mindful of those areas that feel like they take the brunt of a lot of things and being mindful of how white our streets are and what the health inequities are in certain areas in the district. And so I'm trying to reduce some of the density in some of the areas that feel like there's a higher poverty area and increase it a little bit more in the corridors that can handle it. That being said, we do have all these other from the zoning to the urban design that are going to help dictate. But I wanted us to be able to have a baseline and that it might not mean that we're going to have five storeys because the urban design does not fit with that. So I'm going to read these for our city attorney to make sure that we get them right. So excuse me for this fun part. I would please like to make the motion to change the place type from multifamily residential moderate to multifamily residential low along 10th street between Orange Avenue and Gardena Avenue and reduce the height limit from four stories to two stories. I would like to reduce the height limit from five storeys to four storeys for the neighborhood serving center corridor, moderate place type along Cherry Avenue on the south side of 10th Street to the north side of Seventh Street. I'd like to change the place type from neighborhood serving center or corridor low to neighborhood serving center or corridor moderate and increase the height limit. And this is different stuff from what we talked about. Increase the height limit from three stories to four stories on seventh Street between walnut and cherry and up to five storeys. Cherry to a bespoke. Change the place type from neighborhood serving center or corridor low to neighborhood serving center corridor moderate and increase the height limit from three stories to four stories on Fourth Street between Cerritos Avenue and Almond Avenue, as per the request of Neighbor. In order to reduce density in this area. I also to protect several existing three storey buildings. I would like to change the place type from MF R moderate density to MF R low density and reduce the height limit from four stories to three stories in the area of Almond Avenue, Nebraska Avenue and Walnut Avenue between seventh and Fourth Street. And I had hoped to have done that to two stories, but we already have existing things there. So we're going to do two, three. I want to direct. Okay. Hold on. I think that's at 1/2. Before returning to the zoning ordinance that we should vote. Formalized committee process. Guys, those are my recommendations. Those changes. Councilmember We got very clearly everything that we need to to reiterate your very first change related to 10th Street. I will let me go back up. Place type from multiple. Multiple family residential moderate to multiple family residential low along 10th street between Orange and Gardena and reduce the height limit from four stories to two stories. Thank you. Thank you. And just a clarification question for myself. One of those reductions was the reduction along Crescent Village is that this. Is around Craftsman Village to reduce the height limit there, that they have been. To. Two storey. Crown to two stories and not. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Price. Thank you. All right. I'll try to get this through this fairly quickly, but I do have a presentation that highlights all of my changes in a map that I understand better than the map that was prepared in terms of the call out. So thank you to everyone who came out to speak tonight. Actually, I'm going to to tonight and those watching at home, one of the early speakers tonight and this is going off of Councilwoman Pierce's comments, but of course, I drafted mine before her, so I didn't know she was going to touch on this. But one of the early speakers tonight made a comment that implied because some of us were not making eye contact with him during his comments, we were not paying attention. Nothing could be further from the truth, although I understand why he may have felt that way. This issue has involved a great deal of public comment. His comments triggered a point that I think should be should be made regarding our processes, council members, and something that is often unknown or overlooked. When council members come to council meetings and on the nights when we have big issues like this, some of us come to the meeting with prepared remarks or presentations like I did tonight. When we get here, we receive a number of documents to review prior to our vote. They're actually sitting on this counter right here. We've never seen them before. We this includes comments from residents who could not make the meeting letters from residents and in some instances, demonstrative exhibits presented by speakers who are providing testimony who ask us to refer to their submissions during the course of their comments. I assure you that everyone at the dais is taking notes, whether electronically like I do or manually, with a pen and paper and incorporating what you are saying into our comments. As you will see in a moment, I was able to incorporate some of the comments we heard here tonight into my previously prepared presentation during your comments, which I will discuss in a moment. This is an important process, and we want to make sure everyone who tries to reach out to us, whether by email, text message, letter or in person, is heard prior to the vote. Frequently, what we hear or read at council is reflected in our final comments, amendments and our ultimate vote, as you will see here tonight. This is definitely not a situation that is even remotely analogous to a business meeting where you might listen intently for an hour or two or even three without simultaneously being asked to review additional inputs and information without breaking eye contact with the speaker. Trust me, everyone at this dyas is engaged for the entirety of our meetings and has spent hundreds of hours on this issue. Everyone, I am proud to serve with colleagues who have taken such care to approach this issue in a thoughtful and responsible manner, and for that they should all be recognized. I want to thank staff for their great work on this issue. I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. They are all, in my opinion, talented people who care deeply about the city. And any implication to the contrary is inconsistent with my personal experiences and those of my team. Having said that, I have to admit that this process could have been better. And certainly the maps that displayed the proposed changes were confusing at best. And I think staff can attest to the fact that I have repeatedly over the last few months asked for revised maps that have an overlay that show what the proposed changes are with an underlay, that show what the existing densities are. And for some reason, we were never able to receive such maps. I tried to recreate them in a manner that made sense to me. And I'll share those with you in just a moment. In regards to my district. I also want to acknowledge my council staff, especially my chief of staff, Jack Cunningham. They have been engaged in discussion in this discussion for over three years. Our very first Louis meeting was held in 2014 with Angela Reynolds, who came and spoke about CDEP and its its impact with the land use element . Back then nobody was talking about the land use element and a huge thanks to our neighborhood association boards. We've been meeting with many of them and I think they would tell you that they had a very fair process and that we engage them early and try to come up with solutions that were thoughtful and fair. I am especially grateful for those of them who shared with me their understanding that planning is essential and that they wanted to assist with making recommendations that took into consideration the needs of the entire city. Those conversations made me truly grateful to call those folks my neighbors and part of my village and community. They are the reason that I chose to live in this city. Thank you for coming to the table with a broad view of the growth of our city with reasonable compromises and a vision that takes into account what is inevitable in terms of growth for our city. Land use planning is a core function of all cities. Long Beach's 1989 land use element now needs updating. The city wide plan sets limitations for important variables in terms of what types of buildings and land uses are appropriate for each particular area of the city. Updating this plan is one of the most important responsibilities local elected officials have. It is essential to plan for and accommodate changes we know are coming in the future. In my opinion, the option to say no to planning is not a responsible option. We can modify the proposals, make changes, shorten timelines, allowance, allow for review processes and engagement. But we cannot escape the task of planning. Planning for the future. Reading the literature, looking at the impacts is what we are required to do as public servants. And that's what sets us apart from residents who don't bear a fiduciary duty to think about the future of our city. Unfortunately, updating general plans all over the country, not just in Long Beach, can become political and combative and result in serious misinformation that can lead to reactionary or short sighted decision making. We can't change the flaws from the past process. I certainly wish we could, but we can be smart and thoughtful now that we have identified some of the deficiencies and the opportunities for outreach and community engagement. An updated Louis is meant to address population changes, mobility trends, housing needs and encourage reinvestment in areas that have stagnated with dilapidated properties. This this necessity will orient allowable development for decades to come, making it an essential document for the city. This is being done because our city has and will change, and we need to change with it. I thought some of the changes tonight that Mr. Modica referenced in his presentation this evening were interesting, not because but because of so many parallels. When we tell people that we are going to have self-driving cars in the near future, people in my district I don't know about your district sometimes laugh, but I am sure if someone told me in 1989 when we adopted this plan that the Internet would be a place where anyone with access could go to get information on just about anything in a matter of seconds, or that no one would shop at big, big box stores anymore because a company called Amazon would have a drone drop off the items at their home, even in their home on the same day that they placed that Internet order, I would never have believed it. It would have seemed way too futuristic for me. But now I drive a car that drives itself in rush hour and in free flowing traffic to work on a daily basis. Being thoughtful and pragmatic about the future is how we create smart plans that put our city in a good position for future decades. Every indicator shows that cities throughout the state will be seeing population increases in the coming decades, and accommodating for those people who will be living here is not a luxury. It's a responsibility. The Louie is not just about the people we know will be moving to Long Beach in decades to come, but also about better managing the . Who already live here and their needs as they grow into adults and then into older adults. Population growth is part of any healthy city. It's positive. Ignoring that future, ignoring the certainty that every indicator is pointing to, may be politically easy at times, but does greater harm to our city in the long term and the generations that lie ahead. The conversation about the future of our city is important, and I want to say that I support the Louis with the number of changes that I plan to make in just a moment. I have worked with my residents for over three years, holding meetings, taking inputs on walks and drives with them, offering solutions. And I believe that they have had a great impact on where this plan is going to end up. And by the way, I typed those comments during the meeting tonight because your words and your comments were incorporated into these final comments, as they should be, because that's what public comment is all about. So in terms of the the changes that I see for the third district, which is really the only district that I can speak to as that's the one I've been most engaged in. We've conducted a number the the list here shows the meetings that we have asked staff to present to our community regarding the land use planning and the technical elements of the land use plan. We also put out two surveys ourselves to our residents to get feedback. The two primary areas of concern for our district have been, and I think most of the city parking and traffic have been the primary concerns in regards to parking. I think some of the things that are very noteworthy and stuff highlighted them in their presentation, but I want to highlight them again here is that the zoning code addresses this issue. A two bedroom development would require 2.25 spaces. The parking must be on site, which is a really huge component in the third district because we have so many parking impacted areas. The reason we have so many parking impacted areas is because we have a lot of multifamily developments that were built at a time when parking was not required and so there is no onsite parking . And so when we have a new development in the third district, we will now have onsite parking which will alleviate at least for that complex, the parking. When a building is rebuilt or added upon, it will require parking for traffic. I think that we need to reimagine our transit in terms of how it will be used, for example, in the third district. Most of my residents are not riding the bus. However, as I talk to our older, aging adults, I find that if we were to have busses that were more like shuttles, for example, that could take them to, you know, smaller shopping areas. I do believe that big box stores are a thing of the past. We're not going to see a lot of those in the future years, but we are going to see a lot of mixed use developments that are going to be more walkable. And I think smaller shuttle type services will do much better in areas that are parking and densely impacted, like the coastal zones in the third district. For example, let's take the peninsula hugely parking impacted area, very densely populated. People are not going to ride a bus to get down to the peninsula. But if they had a shuttle as an as an option, then they might ride the shuttle and park in the parking lot and the shuttle would have less of an impact on the residents. So I really think we need to have better engagement with Long Beach transit in terms of what kind of transportation we're going to be offering and make sure that it works. A huge bus doesn't work for every neighborhood and it doesn't work for every resident. A small shuttle might. Traffic optimization and an efficiency plan is needed, and that's one of the recommendations that I'll be making at the end. And we need to have developments that create walkable communities. When I talk to our aging adults who are looking at retirement and living in the city, they realize that they're going to want to be able to walk. So mixed use development in those areas where we have a lot of big box shopping centers right now. Turning those into areas where they can walk to get their basic needs is something that seems very appealable, appealing to them. Okay. So I want to start off with in the third district, we recently passed the CS Sep plan and this area I've highlighted in here and actually zoomed in on it. It's the area that's depicted in the maps by the horizontal line block lines. This particular area over the course of the next 30 years is going to already offer a lot of additional housing stock in the third district that we didn't already have. So in terms of taking our share of housing and the necessity for for density, I think the third district that's well on its way and developing potentially market value housing and workforce type housing in this area over the course of the next 30 years. So I'm very proud that my colleagues join me in supporting passing the Scissett plan, because that is part of the entire landscape when we talk about density. We have several. Listing buildings in the third district that are actually very tall or high buildings for the areas that they were built in. We have some seven story buildings bordering park estates. We've got some very high buildings bordering Bluff Park. These are were all built not by variances, but at a time when density and height standards were higher. So they were actually built to the code at the time. If we were to lower do much more lowering of these heights in these areas, then should these buildings become dilapidated and demolished, they cannot build back again to that level. They have to build at the new level, which means they'll probably never demolish some of these buildings. And I'll talk to you about how that is relevant in areas like Bluff Park. So let's talk first about Bluff Park. On the westernmost part of Bluff Park, we have seven four story buildings. This is the area around one sparrow and Broadway, one sparrow. And second, we have some very tall buildings there. My the staff's recommendation was to increase heights to five stories at that location. That's just something that is not acceptable to my community, nor to me. So we will be reducing the recommendation for that area to three stories. This will be a non-conforming use, which means should those seven the four story buildings choose to once they become dilapidated, it's probably unlikely that they will demolish and rebuild because they'll only be limited to three stories. But I think given the historic character of this neighborhood, this change makes sense. The the red dots, as was mentioned earlier, the red dots represent the historic zone. So the motion on this particular item would be that the heights within the Bluff Park Historic District along Broadway be limited to two stories. The second motion is to Bluff Park would be to reduce the height in the MFR dash area, bound by one pair of Second Street, Kennebec and Ocean Boulevard that we reduced from five stories to three stories. All fronts. They all properties facing Broadway will be limited to two stories. They can be mixed use, but they'll be limited to two stories. And we believe the mf r dash l aria as proposed by staff because that's currently a multifamily zone within the historic district. So that's Bluff Park. Moving on to Bluff Heights. We will be asking that quarto place be reduced to two stories, as was recommended by one of our residents. Actually, many of our residents, again, in the area where we have the red dots, we have a historic district. So we asked to change the place type for properties within the Bluff Heights Historic District near Third and Coronado to FC and which has a maximum height of two stories. I'll also be showing when I talk about the Redondo corridor next a recommendation that I have in regards to the Redondo Corridor for the Redondo Corridor. The motion would be to reduce heights in the NCC area along Redondo, south of Colorado, to three stories, fourth stories from Colorado to 10th Street in Bluff Heights on the north side of Redondo will be asking that where the property backs up to a historic property. He was limited to two stories in height. Belmont Heights. Okay. We'll be requesting here that. We'll be asking to reduce the height to NSC. NSC Dash L to two stories on fourth Street. Reduce the height. Fronting Broadway to two stories south of Broadway to three stories except for properties fronting Euclid, which will remain at four stories. And Belmont Shore. Okay. We'll be requesting. And 1/2 here. Just look at my notes here. We'd like to reduce the height along Ocean Boulevard and the mf r dash l area east of Prospect to two stories. Everything west of Prospect already has several three story buildings, so that will stay with the staff's recommendation of three stories. But the majority of ocean, as you can. See. Councilmember, if you could advance to the next slide. Sure. There we go. The next slide. Slide. Okay. Park Estates. Is that what you mean by advance to the next slide? Yes, we were we were a slide behind. What you see. Behind our head of. Okay, so I'm on Park Estates now, which we're all. Together. Now. Okay. Sounds good. You heard enough about that. I'm not sure for Park Estates. We're going to request that the area read it for you. Exactly. The areas surrounding the Los Altos Plaza is currently proposed at three stories. We'd like to reduce that height to two stories, the existing buildings that are there. Can stay. We'd also like to reduce the MF R Dash L area at Atherton and Clark to two stories and correct the map to reflect the existing retail center as C.S.. There's also an area at the top of the map there in Park Estates that we'd like to have. It was the proposal was three stories. It's currently at two stories. We'd like it to remain at two stories. So we'll be asking to reduce the height there at the Iron Triangle. We're going to ask that we reduce the Bellflower PCH community commercial area to two stories. The other area there is is an existing three story building. So we're okay with staff's recommendation on that property just north of that. West of CSU will be no change there. We're going with staff's recommendation in regards to some additional changes in regards to CD3. Specifically on page 136 of the plan you list implementation program L, you dash M dash 94 to address existing homes in the designated open space area of Roses Dog Beach. The policy allows basic remodels but prohibits additions of any kind. I'm directing staff to amend that text to read as follows to address existing homes in the designated open space area of Rosie's Dog Beach. Balancing the needs of private property owners and beach visitors continue the zoning code provisions to allow basic remodels by right as well as additions up to 250 square feet for residential uses located within the open space place type. I would like and this is consistent with Councilwoman Gonzalez's request for a regular update. I had suggested an annual update, but I would like to hear from my colleagues about this by way of study session on the status of the Luis implementation and progress towards intended goals. The update should include any significant new developments. Any updates on state legislation regarding land use and housing? Updates on city traffic plans or studies. Updates on population growth or any data that we've received regarding the same contemporaneous to the creation of the Louis. Staff should prepare a traffic optimization and efficiency report or whatever other title that you want to give that to encompass a traffic plan on current as well as future traffic patterns and trends, and to identify ways to mitigate traffic congestion at major intersections. As part of the update. The zoning code as part of the update to the zoning code. City staff should consider increasing parking requirements for new developments and parking impacted areas. And that's just something we'd ask staff to consider. We'd like staff to conduct a historic resources survey. The scope and objective of which which should be developed in conjunction with the historic districts community associations and develop a community engagement and architectural review process that includes feedback from the immediate community members, either generally or through the selection of community association representatives for the impacted community to sit on the Site Plan Review Committee, which we heard a little bit about tonight. I think it would be important for us to have residents opining on the site review process. And finally, my so I guess item number one would be moving on or adding on to Councilwoman Gonzalez's request for frequent updates items two, three, four, five and six, which I'm going to make right now, would be friendly amendments on six would be to keep the land use plan as a five year plan and to reevaluate it at the five year mark. Thank you very much, Councilmember. Let me move on to District four, Councilmember Superman. Thank you. And for those of you watching this later, it's right now 10:30 p.m.. I'm going to. Make my comments very, very brief. I'll pause for applause there. But I think if I spoke to this item, it might be construed that I felt that the public speakers here tonight did not cover the topic. I think quite the opposite is true. There's nothing I can add to what was articulated here tonight. The comments showed tremendous thought research. I knew this was going to happen because of all the emails we received that the residents have really taken the time to understand a very complex process. I attended all but one of the public meetings and. I thought the comments there were equally impressive. I think some would said it's been a long process. Yes, I think five months ago and one day was when I introduced the director general services on the stage at Whaley Park. I think a month before that I made my first public statement on the topic. So I promise I'm not. Going to comment on this, but but there was one particular. Speaker tonight whose comments I find so ironic that I want to mention that one of the comments was, I guess it was devices in that it tried to separate us. It was like an East versus West or something. The question was asked, Gee, have any of you ever been west of Cherry Avenue? Well, the irony here is the fourth Council district admittedly is very white and very diverse, but the eastern border is the Orange County line and it extends west of cherry. So the answer is yes, I've been west of Cherry. The other one was a. Kind of rhetorical question. Gee, all you all you folks want is to be able to park in front of your own houses for free. Okay. The irony here is. If you take the one mile stretch along Atherton in. Front of the pyramid, one mile between Palo Verde Avenue and Bellflower, I believe there are 15 residential streets perpendicular to Atherton and every single one of those is parking packed and it has a preferential parking district that's hundreds of residents on each of those streets who pay to park in front of their own homes. So I just want to put that perspective in place here. I'm going to ask Tom Modica to to read my changes. And I also, in addition to thanking everyone who spoke here tonight, I also like to thank city staff Tom Modica and Linda Tatum. I met Friday. We also met Monday. At City Hall. And I think Tom's final email to me was at 10:16 p.m. last night, which I couldn't read because I was in front of a community hospital conducting an interview for NBC News. So, so much for this part time job at city council. But, Tom, if you would, articulate those and appreciate it. Thank you, Councilmember. I'll give a brief summary and Linda will go through the actual recommendations. So we were given a challenge by a council member supernova to really take a look at what can come down and what are some of the areas we've been listening, we've been going to the roundtables. It's clear there is a lot of concern right around the traffic circle in particular. There are some areas around the YMCA that we need to look at, as well as the commercial corridors and the current multi-use areas that are going to kind of line up with what we believe are going to be some of the discussions in District five. And so with that, I'd like Linda to go through each one of those and read those into the record as as the stats recommendations. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Councilman. Super. Now, the first item is going to be at the location bound by Lakewood, Willow and the alley south of Willow and east of Lakewood changed the neighborhood serving corridor place type to community commercial at two stories. Change number two at the four properties at the Lakewood Stearns interchange, bound by the alleys on the northeast, northwest and southwest, and also bound by the transition by the between the commercial. We're going to change that. Likewise to Community Commercial at two stories. Item number three at Stearns and Los Coyotes intersection impacting the triangular commercial properties both on the northeast of the intersection and on the southwest of that intersection. Change the neighborhood serving commercial place type. And lower that designation to two stories. In the Northeast Traffic Circle area bound by Lakewood, the alley south of Rosita Street, Seminole and PCH reduced the neighborhood serving moderate density. Area. From four stories to neighborhood serving commercial low density three stories. Change number five in the multifamily area bound by Lowe's, Coyotes, Clark Park, Jimeno, Atherton and PCH. This is near the in the traffic circle area. Reduce the multifamily moderate density from four stories to multi-family residential low density at three stories. Change number six for the Vons Shopping Center in the outer traffic circle area found by Zunino, Atherton, Los Coyotes and Park. Reduce the place. Type from four stories to community commercial at two stories. Change number seven for the multifamily area in the outer traffic circle bound by Termino, Mendez, Jacinto and Lakewood. Reduce the height from six stories to multifamily residential low at three stories. Change number eight for the neighborhood serving commercial area bound by Grand Terminal PCH in Wilton. Reduce the height from four stories to neighborhood serving corner commercial. I'm sorry, neighborhood serving corridor. Low density at three stories. And lastly, number nine at Atherton and Bellflower. Modify the height to be consistent at three stories across all of these community commercial properties on the east side of Bellflower. And that concludes the changes. Okay. Thank you. Concern for Superman staff for the District four recommendations. Councilwoman Mongo. Thank you. This has been quite a process. I want to start by outlining a little bit about what drives my friendly amendments today community engagement. And I did this against staff recommendations sometimes as I started hosting community meetings. Well before. The maps were scheduled to go to the Planning Commission. And the thoughts were that it's not really appropriate for council members to get involved until the time at which they can make a mark on those recommendations. And I disagreed with that because I really felt that it was important to unite the voices of the Fifth District. And for us to take the time to sit down together and prioritize, because the process was not outlined before it began. And so because of that, we didn't know what the next turn would be. And so we had to know together what we prioritized. So I met in small groups, in living rooms and coffee shops and restaurant patios, and I've hosted large groups in cafeterias and pizza parlors and community centers. We handed out we brought maps from all the different versions, and we handed out little arrows for people to prioritize what was most important to them and and voiced their concerns about different areas. Along the way, there were a lot of individuals who unfortunately had been fed misinformation along the way. And sometimes when individuals hear misinformation and they get scared, they react in ways that can be hurtful towards others. And I'm very thankful for those who came to meetings angry and. Just enrage that by the end. Often we were talking about how we both shared common visions and how we both rolled up our sleeves and bought the ugliest house on the block and what it was like to buy a home as a young person and grow into it. And I feel like there was a lot of opportunity to find common ground. I agree with Nick that the process could have been if we did it and knew where we were now, that we would be in a better place. But part of the process was growing with the voice of the community. And so I think that we were able as a community to kind of design that process as we went. And I think Conor was a part of discussing what the strengths and weaknesses to date were and where we went from there. So I'm going to start with adding a request for staff instruction that provides a transparent process that protects our neighbors and gives opportunity for stakeholder input in the future. On page 59 of the staff presentation, we talk about the five year check in, and I know that Councilmember Gonzalez talked a little bit about that and Councilwoman Pryce talked a little bit about that. I hear both the desire to be firm, to protect us against developers and the state's desire for interference in our communities, and the desire to have the check in points for our community, to have the input and make corrections should they be necessary. So what I would like to propose is two parts. So we have a committee called Economic Development and Finance, and this committee and the work on this committee that I chair has really been a driving force for our revitalization of some of our commercial corridors. For the first time in the history of the city council, our committee actually can have access to data that can help us make good decisions. And I remember when I was first elected to the city council, I sat down with Mr. GROSS and said, You know, we really need the data related to sales tax revenue and property tax revenue and we need a BI corridor, we need a bi district, we need. And he said, Well, that's illegal. And I said, Well, good thing the people behind this dais with five votes can change that law. So let's talk about what we need to do to give the people who make the decisions on behalf of a half a million people data to drive their decisions, not just whims of a lot of people shop here or a lot of people don't shop here. What's the data show? And from that, you now see in our committee a quarterly report that demonstrates what corridors are growing and what corridors are struggling. The vacancy on my side of town is at an all time low. I'll include some of those numbers in my email to the community tomorrow. We were able to see some of the areas that we were lacking and be able to see that the data showed that Fifth District residents weren't eating in the restaurants on the side of town, that they were running across that little imaginary line to the city of Lakewood or the city of Los Alamitos. And to respond to that, we've had more restaurants open. We're adding more restaurants at the Long Beach Town Center in buildings that didn't even exist before. And so to do that, we have to protect the community commercial that has come together and and started to thrive. When we have brought people to the district and they make these large investments in these commercial corridors and we need to protect those investments. And so while I get criticism about the desire for community commercial, the discussant discussions come after the criticism from the critic being surprised that when we were elected the vacancy rates were much different and the revenue from those corridors was different. And the reason that the revenue was important to look at is because when a business is selling. To 500 customers a day. They're not as profitable as if they sell to 600 customers a day. And if they are selling to 600 customers a day, that's an additional 20% of neighbors that are getting access to something they want closer to home. And that's important. Sure. So I've worked hand in hand with the business owners to create and grow businesses and grow business associations. Since I've been elected, we have over 760 new businesses just in the fifth District. That's new businesses. And that's 2000 new jobs. And those are along Spring Street there, along Lakewood Boulevard there, along Clark Avenue. We're getting revitalization of the Clark Avenue property, which everyone said would never get revitalized under that zoning. It's absolutely getting revitalized under the exact same zoning. And the tenants who were there are some of them are returning and others have found other properties adjacent on Lakewood Boulevard. And so we're really excited about that. I would like the transparency to come in the economic development report that we receive on a quarterly basis. I would like there to be some opportunity to protect ourselves from discussions that we didn't know were being had. And what I mean by that is it seems as though through this process we've heard from developers that they didn't feel it was important to meet with the community and that instead they went directly to development services to share their ideas on what they wanted to develop in our neighborhoods without really talking to the neighborhoods. And so I'd like an additional page added to the EDF agenda. And when these developers are engaging in a certain corridor, I'd like those corridors to be listed. So there's always a transparent process of who are in these dialogs. And the reason this is important is one of the reasons I think that there's been so much distrust of this process is that people felt left out and duped by discussions that were had so much so that at a community meeting, a developer said that city staff instructed them not to talk to the community. And quite honestly, they don't take instruction from city staff. You're an independent person with an investment and you make the decisions that you think are important to keep your customers. And so we need to create and bond those relationships because we want our develop. We want our commercial corridors and landlords and their tenants to be successful. And to do that, you have to have open dialog. You have to hear what those residents want. So with that, my my presentation is much less high tech than Councilwoman Price. I brought some additional documents, so I'll start my comments as follows. We'll start in Lakewood Village. So for everyone at home, this is Lakewood Village. And I'm going to make. Three. Three substantial changes. And. Four substantial changes to Lakewood Village. First, we're going to talk about Lakewood Boulevard right here. I would like to reduce the height limit to two stories along Lakewood Boulevard where it's currently shown as MF Carlo at three stories. This includes from Del Amo all the way to Norse way. Then I'd like to talk about Norris Way. Please change the place. Type at the North. East corner node of Lakewood Boulevard in Carson Street, where North Sway intersects from nickel to community, serving commercial and reduce the height to as it is today. Two stories. Three. Please reduce the height limit to two stories along Carson Street. Where it's currently shown as mf r l at three stories. This includes from Norris Way to Faculty Avenue and from Clark Avenue to Viking Way. I believe the entire Carson corridor has some opportunity in the future for. Reorganization and some better parking. A lot of these landlords talk to me that they don't even have places to park when they go collect their rent and other things. So we need to talk about what we can do along the corridor to be more conducive to both the residents and the land owners. And so I will welcome a future process where we can all sit down as stakeholders and discuss how we can resolve the issues that exist today and what kinds of opportunities Carson here and all the way up can can have. Because even as you get closer to McBride, we have some serious parking impact that has come upon us because of decisions of a district that they don't have any requirement to involve the community in. Their process of deciding that a K through eight school or a six through eight school becomes a high school. And that's a huge impact and change on neighbors that we also need to discuss. And the school district when I was in high school had 99,000 residents and today it's somewhere around 60 something thousand. And so as they make these decisions on these other properties, similar to the properties in my district that are being turned from institutional to commercial, now, the old post office, we want to have a community dialog about what the future could look like. That's only three. I have a fourth on that one. Item four. I'd like to reduce the height limit to two stories along Bellflower Boulevard. It's currently yellow with a three. I'd like to reduce the limit to two stories on Bellflower Boulevard from Viking Way to Arbor Road. Where. It's currently shown as MF RL at three stories. One of the things that I think is important is a number of individuals talk today a little bit about Parkview Village. It's currently two story commercial. I don't know what information continues to be out there. It's been two story commercial for months and my office still gets calls asking me to turn. It took a two story commercial, and so I'll do my best to continue to provide the information to the community via the newsletters. And these are all little snippets that we've included in prior newsletters, but. The the misinformation and demonization saying the Council on Mongo didn't do something or did do something. I mean, I hope we can all agree on checking the city website and looking at the facts. Okay. Number five. So number five, as a community I've worked very closely with and not a lot of their members have attended meetings, but I've talked to their past president and other members of the community. Many people don't know that this little node along the six or five freeway 20 years ago was promised. A sound wall. And for the last 12 years. It was reported incorrectly by Metro as a sound while in the city of Lakewood, and not until I was elected and started pursuing this aggressively. Was Long Beach ever going to get what it was promised? We have since pulled in more than a quarter of $1,000,000 in planning for the future of this community. And I think that it'll really be a vibrant community. They actually have onsite parking. However, the challenges in this community are that they've they were allowed to in the past have offsite parking. And so a lot of these residents don't have enough parking. I'm going to have one change to that. This is change number five. I'm going to have the height reduced to the two two stories at the Spring Street Southeast node about bounded by the six or five freeway in Coyote Creek, where it's currently shown as MFA. And at four storey, the heights in there are very interesting and varied, but I think that this will at least give them a comfort for today. And as we move forward with our sound wall pursuit, I know and I'm confident that we can talk through how to fix some of their parking issues as well with potentially the removal of one of their tennis courts. Item number six. Actually six and seven. So this aligns with council members, super or not, I really want to thank Councilmember Super now for his work. A lot of us share areas across the border and one of the considerations in land use is how you have to have consistency in certain areas to meet certain requirements. And so I appreciate Councilmember Super joining me in this important change. I would like to change the place type on the southeast corner node of Lakewood Boulevard in Spring Street from Newcastle to community commercial and reduce its height to 4 to 2 stories and change the place type on the northwest corner node of Lakewood Boulevard and Stern Street from NSC L to community commercial and reduce the height to two stories. So that'll take care of those. Next is the town center. The town center, something we've all talked a lot about. The town center was designed in a certain way on purpose. You're not supposed to be able to get in and out quickly. It actually provides some security for the community. I've worked hand in hand with the Star over the last year to find opportunities to reposition and remarket some of the vacant space. They've entertained offers from gyms and other things that add a more consistent week day option for visiting. There's also some opportunity on some empty property that's been there for a long time that a lot of people call our office and asked to be a park. It can't be a park. It's not under our lease at this time. But the landlord, who is an out of state property management company, has agreed to develop that vacant area into the restaurants that the community has asked for. And we have some really exciting interest from a lot of local restaurants. So I feel really confident that for now, well, in the future we may want to look at what the town center could look like based on the successes of the commercial restructuring we're doing now. I'd like to change the place type on the southwest corner node of Carson Street and the 65 Freeway, where the town center is located from an ACM to community commercial and reduce the height to two stories. I believe there's some opportunity to re-envision this area with the community as we see how this new commercial develops. The amount of interest we've had from commercial because it's along the six or five freeway is remarkable. And the data that we've started to look at related to who shops say this Lowe's versus who shops at the Lowes on Bellflower and why they're two completely different markets and why you can have two of the same stores so close together is really something interesting for us to look at because this center is a commercial driver where we are able to pick up revenue from our surrounding cities. And so that's a really important component of picking up your sales tax leakage from other cities. Number nine. Number nine, I'd like to change the place type in the northwest corner. Note of Spring Street and Woodruff Avenue from NW ACM to community commercial and reduce its height to two stories. I've had a lot of talks with neighbors out their doors. I'm specifically in this community discussing and understanding the challenge of this area and the traffic of this area. We're looking at some protected left areas already to relieve some of this. And I'll talk a little bit about infrastructure in a minute that'll help with some of these concerns. And finally, I think the most exciting named community at many of our discussions is what we call the bow tie. And I would like to change the place type on the southwest and northeast corner to nodes of Louis Cody's diagonal and Palo Verde Road from NCC to community serving commercial and reduce the height to two stories. There was a little bit of talk today about the frustrations that people have as they drive across the city and some of the infrastructure needs and repair needs. And I want to thank my colleagues, because this council is the first council that was willing to do a report and a study of how much need there really is . It's easy to say we're fixing things here, but until you take an inventory of the total needs of what you have to to plan and prepare for and pay for. We didn't know that the fifth District, the day I was elected, had $40 million of outstanding street repair. You add on top of that the needs of our parks and our infrastructure of our libraries and the infrastructure of our community centers. It had never been discussed, and one of the things I'm super passionate about is ensuring that as we come and work towards equity of park programing and equity of library services and equity of all those things, we also have equity of the infrastructure of our communities. And I really appreciate my colleagues that we've taken a stand together. And I'm. Just so proud and thankful that we have decided to move forward where we are prioritizing the distribution of repairs based on need. It has not been done before and shame on us for having. Let it get to a point where a new group of councilmembers had to come in in mass to be able to build the relationships, to vote, to support the city as a whole, because that is a big part of being an amazing city. And so I am humbled to work with so many of these colleagues. I really, really appreciate your support of me. I know throughout the process so many of them were asking, how are those community meetings going? And we we had a lot of dialog about our ability as a city to design an input process. And the council meeting we hosted at McBride High School several months ago. I had an agenda item about the standardization of community input requirements and the standardization of how the the Council and the city must use certain tools to communicate to the community. Because if you don't have a reliable place where you know, you can always get the information then. You'll go to next tor.com and you'll believe the craziest things about me that are just not true. And so we need to have legitimate, consistent communication that are factually correct. So thank you. Thank you. Next up is councilmember defenders. Thank you, Mayor. And I want to thank everyone for staying around here. We're very close to that 12:00 night and I know everyone will just turn into pumpkins after that, but I'm going to try to get this done before then, because the fact that we have things that we're very concerned about, especially with this new land element , and I think everyone should be very concerned about it because I think it will be a benefit not only to themselves but to the city in which we live in. I first of all, I would like to thank and acknowledge the residents and the stakeholders who have advocated on behalf of their community throughout the process. And I want to thank you for your input, because we do we certainly did hear you. And I want to thank the planning staff and the commissioners remaining diligent and looking ahead. And thank you again for that also. As many of you might recall, I submitted a letter into the record on December the 11th, the planning committee, you know, in the hearing. This is my letter. Here is my letter. Echoed, echoed the residents concerns and outlined several new height reductions for the sixth District. My staff and I walk the neighborhoods surrounding Anaheim, Pacific and Atlantic, knocking on many, many doors to get community feedback. The challenge of overcrowding affordable and the lack of economic opportunities in Long Beach are citywide issues. What should be shared the responsibility across the city district. And I'm prepared to do my part tonight. So what do we do when people speak against only height and density in their neighborhood? We promise that it is our desire to see more housing, both market rate and affordable, built across Long Beach and to adopt a policy such as an inclusionary housing ordinance that will support community diversity and mixed income housing. Housing clearly necessary to provide seniors, homelessness, reentry, population and other numerous groups. Tonight, I speak on behalf of those unable to attend this hearing. The single mothers who worked two jobs to support their families. A man who has to choose between paying for the groceries and keeping the lights on. The three families cramped into a two bedroom apartment and the people sleeping in their cars and storefront entryways. In our parks, we cannot continue to put our fears ahead of someone else's suffering. Nor can we continue to be immune to what is going on around us. Overcrowded housing. Increase in homelessness. Unaffordable rent should not be acceptable for our city. We can do better. That being said, I have a few minor changes that are necessary to be successful in the district as a community for years to come. Here's my change. For the record, I'm Pacific Coast Highway between Pacific Avenue and Cedar. I am requesting that the o d low density be extended along PCH from Pacific to the east side of Cedar Avenue, and that the height be increase from five stories to seven stories. Additionally, I would like to expand the SC minus M area along PCH northward by two parcels from the west side of Cedar to the west side of Magnolia. And finally, I would like to announce as well as part of my commitment and to the record, to work with the regular residents and the city staff in conjunction with Mayor Robert Garcia and local stakeholders to create a vision and a specified plan to the Rigley village in the future. This plan will create Wrigley, the village that we as a community has dreamed of. We in the six districts a great increase density with midtown specified plans. And we have gone further and increased density across the district in other areas. And I believe that in the future we may find that this plan did not do enough to in other areas of the city. So in saying that, I would like to use this as a quote. When you talk about the compassion is not allowed to be losing. When you do, a passion is not about losing. It is about deciding that the other person has just made it just as much right to be as happy with the end result as you do. So I tell you, with our district here in the sixth District, most people think only about the crowdedness that we have there. You guys, a lot of you look at we in the audience, we don't have many people here speaking up on what they would like to do because that's the type of situation I have in the sixth District. But I think what we know, what we have to do, we must build. But in building, we want to make sure that we take care of those individuals who are not able to speak up for themselves tonight. And I want to thank my staff very much for the hard work that they did on this item. And thank you again for listening and. For good councilmember. Next up is going to be Ranga. Thank you, Mayor, for passing the baton. Thank you, Judy. And I want to thank my fellow council members here for their comments. Very well-put, very thoughtful. And I certainly agree with some of your adjustments into your into your land use element plans, because, you know, your district's best, just like like I know mine. So I want to thank the community for coming out today and sharing their thoughts. Obviously, it's important that we listen and we incorporate some of your ideas. I don't have a whole lot of changes because a lot of the changes that I have that are in the land use element for the seventh District have been taken care of. We did it individually. I met with community representatives from each of the areas. We incorporated some of those changes into the maps that are presented today. But I do want to share a little bit of the chronology so that we can you better better understand I don't have the overlays such as my my colleague did, but I can give you a little bit of a summary. We had we met with staff several times to talk about some of the concerns, whether the original maps, one of the original proposals that I heard at one time was no height limits. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Slow down. We got to have some height limits because there are some areas that would not be recommended to have no high limits where we would be building developments that would be above five stories, seven and eight and nine stories going to have that. We also had some pop ups, and I want to commend staff for their availability to hold informational meetings and participate in community pop ups, where we had some focus groups and people came in and shared their ideas. So in talking to the residents and talking to start to staff, we made some adjustments along the maps as we as we talked about the changes that were there. For example, on the Wrigley and the Wrigley Del Mar and Wrigley Heights neighborhoods. We covered a whole quarter mile radius around the World Station, which was previously identified as a transit oriented development place type. And we change that now to reduce it to a neighborhood, to a fountain, contemporary neighborhood. So it's a it's been reduced. We also met with staff to identify in the West Palm Beach area to identify portions of Santa Fe that would be reduced from neighborhoods during development to found in contemporary place types. And this will much better work with for that for the West Palm Beach and the Santa Fe Corridor. Also concerns about the neighborhood residents in the California Heights area. We change portions of the industrial area just south of Wardle and east of Cherry, and we changed that from industrial to O'Neil Industrial to reflect neighborhood good service regarding air pollution. So we lowered the intensity of the industrial to industrial to new industrial and also to reflect the impacts that they would have in the historic district, which is which is kill heights. Also in the cafeteria, we changed the Cherry and Wardlow shopping center from a neighborhood serving mixed use to a community commercial. We also looked at and heard residents concerned about the Heights Long Beach Boulevard. And so we are just at the maximum height for Long Beach Boulevard between the 405 and San Antonio Road to a consistent five stories along that route and provide a height transition to the rear of those buildings better but the neighborhoods to three stories . We also reduced the height limits at the Springdale. Rates project from multi while with multifamily but from five stories to three stories. And we adjusted the area at 33rd and cherry, which is close to and attached to the California Heights neighborhood from industrial to neo industrial as well. And then we changed the designation of the areas near Wilshire Spark Wellsprings Park to Neal Industrial. So we've been able to do that and we did it before the plans went out so that so that once our residents got to see the Met, it was something that we already had worked on and we already had come to agreement in terms of what we wanted to have there. Another area that, that that I need to our staff is that it's been brought up that when you look at zip codes and we look at the impacts that the so typical to have in terms of public health and air quality. West Long Beach has had well, the seventh District has 1.6 acres of open land per 1000 residents. So this begs the question about this development, these these Alawi plants. And are we looking at a county for additional greenspace as we go along with these were these plants. Thank you for the question, Councilman. The question is regarding as new development comes in and certainly the west side and central Long Beach is significantly poorer compared to the east side of the city. So understanding those facts that the question is how do we provide adequate open space to the residents? So it's a multi-pronged approach. So the first is the design of the project itself. And there are we have policies and as part of the review process as well, making sure that a new building, whether it's a small apartment building or a big apartment building, has onsite amenity space. So that could be a roof tag. That could be an exercise room, that could be a play space at the ground floor, making sure there's onsite amenity space. So that's on site. Number two means making sure that they pay Quimby fees. So Quimby fees or park fees that every new development in this city pays. And we have had success. It's not actually us. We just collect the money and then we have the money over to Park Rec and Marine. And while we haven't been able to do brand new huge parks, we have been able to do small parks throughout the park, part of the city where we utilize underutilized lots or maybe were able to acquire a property that's being sold at auction. So what we're trying to do is provide a mini space onsite as well as expand our park presence in our park, poor parts of the city which are central and west Long Beach. So we are very conscious of that issue and there's actually a specific policy and the land use element in front of you which directs that the city, as they're doing their capital planning and as they're there planning, that we apply resources not exclusively, but give priority to those areas that are underserved today as we create new green space and other investments in our community. Thank you for that update. And I'm glad that at least you are looking at it. And I think it's very important for us to look at the equity issues in terms of parks around the city and especially we're not talking about the seventh District. So I have a few changes, not many to add to this. I would like to direct staff to reduce the height on the south side of Wardlow from the four, four, four five freeway going west to the Metro Blue Line for properties in the transit oriented development, low density place type from four stories to three stories on the following properties to 50. West Wardlow Road to zero two. Wardlow Road 150. West Wardlow Road 100 East Wardlow Road. And then there are some properties here with no addresses, but I can identify them as RPN 7204014025. RPN 7204014024. APRN 7204014013. AP in 720401412. AP in 720401414011 and Apne 420400906. And I also want to limit the height for an ACL place type on Locust Avenue to two stories. We like to limit the heights of MF Bar L Place type below lottery rules park at two stories, limit the height on Spring Street to three stories and maintain heights to south of California Heights, the historic neighborhood at no more than three stories. So those are my recommendations. Obviously, if there is more clarity that needs to be made certain to give up. Control, then we have most of your motion. But I'm going to ask you to repeat. You talked about the properties on Mortlock Road and there were a number of apps and thankfully we don't need to repeat any of that. Then you moved on to Locust Road and if you could start. There. And go through those one more time so that we make sure we. Reflect. Your direction correctly. To limit the heights on Locust Road to two stories. Okay, limit the heights of Los Altos Park right below Los Lunas Park to two stories. I live at the height on Spring Street to three stories and then in the Heights area, maintain the heights at no more than three stories. Okay. Now I have almost everything other than and when you say maintain the heights at three stories and how heights is there is the heights historic district has a two storey height limit because it's single-family it's. The it's the area across from the south south of Wardlow Road, directly. South of Castle Heights, I believe right under said. Which is the business corridor basically I think you see. Thank you. And that's all I have here. There's a pause. I like to thank the residents of the seventh District. We're still here. The champions saying here to 12 teeth. Talk to me in Austin. Thank you. So I'll go. I want to also thank staff. I want to thank the members of the community who've been engaged in this process from the very beginning. And obviously it's been a long process. This is an awesome city and I want to thank my colleagues for their work on this as well. This is has not been an issue that any of us has taken lightly. Clearly, I want to just say that I got a good night's sleep last night in preparation for for tonight's meeting. And so I'm glad that you all are still with us. I want to, first of all, address the process. I'm going to have a few questions and then go into the motion for changes that that I'd like to see in my or my residence. I would like to see. First of all, I would like to address the process that we went through, considering the maps for the eighth District after we hosted the final citywide community meeting on Louie in October in the parking lot of the North Police Station. And it was one of the largest meetings of the four meetings in the community. I stayed there throughout the meeting and listened to the comments of my residents and many others who spoke at that meeting. I watched a planning commission meeting in December, listened to many of the public comments there, including some of the residents who have also spoken at the meetings in October. I've heard many of some of the some of the residents speak on multiple occasions on this issue after the Planning Commission voted to forward the elderly and urban design element to the council, and it was announced that it would be coming to the Council in March. I wanted to reach out to a diverse range of opinions and backgrounds from my district to get their thoughts. And I'll go into that. Later, I wanted to make sure that our outreach was broad and inclusive of communities and people that I did not have a chance to hear from, from previous community meetings, public meetings. I included a series of focus groups. I conducted a series of focus groups over several weeks with dozens of residents. Those included groups of teenagers, seniors, young adults, empty nesters, their business owners, community, commercial property owners, realtors, city commissioners and residents from about every area in the eight district. And during those focus groups, we had some great discussions. Many said that they learned viewpoints and learn things that they wouldn't have otherwise considered prior to understanding at Ulu and Dewey. And most were brand new to to to the Dewey process. Didn't even know it how the process worked. I wanted to be sure to listen to voice voices throughout my entire district and not just those heard regularly at community meetings, which I do appreciate those comments as well. We promoted transparency through our newsletter and shared information on the land use element numerous times in my office's newsletter. I've had the maps available in my office for review from our constituents in my field office, and I've invited folks on several occasions for their input and comments. We had an open door policy and so much so that that I heard from drop ins from from people in the third district and fifth district and fourth district who dropped in my office in Bixby both to to see the maps. To view the maps themselves. And to even offer comment. I also drove throughout the entire district looking at what was proposed for each corridor compared to what is currently there. And I engaged in conversation with neighbors on the street and even in our coffee shops as I normally do. I spent the weekend looking at the land use element in 1989 and reviewing that. And I can just tell you that it was it was striking how similar some of the comments and issues were 30 years ago and they are today. And I know Councilmember Rex Richardson will go into some of the the disparities that we are going to try to avoid this evening with the decision moving forward with the maps, particularly in a district. In my I can't say that I will. Many of the heights have been reduced along the corridors from what it was originally proposed last August, and I've listened to the comments of my constituents over the past several months, and I'm prepared to offer some additional modifications this evening based on the feedback and consideration, considering the multitude of opinions. Now, as a council member in a district representing a great constituency, my decision making processes are inclusive, balanced and consistent, and they have to be Long Beach. The city has been often characterized as a tale of two cities, and I think some of that was was characterized just tonight in some of the comments. It can also be argued that the eighth District is a microcosm of that description as the most as it is the most diverse district in a city. I believe in every way and definitely the most economically diverse in the city with the only country club and the largest subsidized public housing development in L.A. County, they are literally within walking distance. This diversity brings diverse interests and needs and a great responsibility to plan the plan for the future. My district is trained, changed dramatically just during my short six year tenure on the council, and I'm realistic that changes will continue over the next two decades. Let's keep in mind that some areas see the l'ue is as a as a problem or something scary, as a scary document. And other areas of our city can view this l'ue as an opportunity to actually improve the quality of life and economic development in neighborhoods. And then their neighborhoods have always welcome change and investment in my district, and I'll continue to do so. I believe complacency is never the answer, and the easiest decision that anybody can make sane is to say no. That said, I do have a couple of quick questions because I haven't heard any any mention and little mention has been about the founding and contemporary neighborhoods and the changes that will happen to those areas and to staff. So are we factoring in any potential new the potential new accessory dwelling units and residential areas as part of our new housing stock and the count moving forward? Thank you for the question, Councilman. So, yes, we did account for accessory dwelling units, including the ordinance that took effect a couple weeks ago here in the city of Long Beach. And we do estimate they'll be about 100 accessory dwelling units per year during the next couple of decades. So while those units are very important to the 100 families each year, that will have an additional housing choice, they don't represent a significant enough increase in the housing stock to, I guess, be statistically significant. But they're they're certainly very important to the individuals that are going to be housed and they are factored in. And that change will be occurring modestly, but will be occurring in our single family neighborhoods. So as I look at the map, it's pretty yellow in my district. That's correct. I would say most of the areas. And so looking at that map and I'm going to go some place with it. The next question is, are any of these neighborhoods, are they currently zoned under the current Dewey adopted in 1989 for for two story and areas that are one story homes. So our existing land use element doesn't have any height limits. It doesn't actually have very much detail about a lot of topics, which is part of the problem with the existing document. But the existing zoning ordinance which implements the plan does apply a two storey height limit on those single family areas today, regardless of whether there is a one story or two story home in those areas. So from planning staff, is there an expectation that with the new height limitations in these contemporary neighborhoods that there will the neighborhoods will actually add heights over the next 20 years? Do you expect to see a different type of phenomena? So certainly there will be homeowners that will remodel and add to their homes. We don't expect that phenomenon to change significantly as a result of this proposed action. And when you talk about I think there was a reference to sort of a two foot. An allowable height that's really going to come into play in a very small number of circumstances where you have a vacant lot or you have something that gets demolished and someone builds sort of a more contemporary home and it might have a different roofline than what we see in a historic home. But that's something that you might see on a block or two or three or 12, but not something that's going to change the character of those neighborhoods broadly. Well, so so much has been focused on the the the corridors and the transit corridors, obviously. And I didn't wanted to go there because I think I'm trying to make the point that just because it can happen doesn't mean it will happen. My next door neighbor can build a 2/2 story on their home. That's correct. So we know that they will. We know from the data, from the accessory dwelling unit so far, we know from development data throughout the city, most properties, the vast majority of properties will not develop because there is an existing improvement in the owner of that. Existing improvement wants to continue operating that that the owner, whether it's a home or an apartment building, an office building, there's a number of different factors they think about. And it's not just maximizing potential development, especially when you have an existing development. So what we're trying to do is create sufficient capacity knowing quite well that most properties will not redevelop. So on a given corridor you may look at a map and it may say five stories or four stories or three stories in it. It provokes a response. But that does not mean that there is going to be a five story box on every single property of that block. It means there is an opportunity on 1 to 3, however many may occur over time for those properties to redevelop and to go through the process, including the review of the design. I really appreciate you explaining that because I think there's there's just an emotional no reaction to when you see entire blocks and corridors colored in, you know, lavender or pink with high heights on them, that that you know, I think the reaction is that this is the way it's going to be throughout this entire corridor. And I just think that that is unrealistic expectation. That is absolutely unrealistic, yes. One of my questions, I think. Is there anything in the U.S. or the design side? I'm sorry to design standards that would guide a minimal size for a particular development. For example, a corridor is proposed three or four storeys, but the existing buildings along a block are one story. If the property owner on the block with the 25 or 20 or 50 foot wide property wanted to develop a three or four storey building under that under these proposed maps, is there anything besides the proposed height limits that would guide what would be allowed for that development? Again, what I'm asking is, are we are we opening a door for cracker boxes to be along corridors? No. So there's two ways we deal with that. The first is in the land use element and the urban design element. So within the urban design element, there's a specific strategy. It's identified as strategy number 14, and that addresses transitions. But that's not just transitions between different zones or different place, types of transitions between all the new development, between higher and lower heights, between residential and other uses. So transition doesn't mean the development can't happen, but it means you may have a step back, you may have a wedding cake approach, you may have a buffer area that's landscaped. So that's sort of number one, and that's policy built in the plan. But number two is how we actually implement and we implement through the zoning code. So in the zoning code today and what we will do going forward is we look at lot size and lot width and we do what's called a graduated approach. So in order to maximize your height or your density, you cannot do that on a small lot. You need to acquire a 20,000 square foot lot. It needs to have significant width to it at a 100 200 foot of width. Okay. So that's number two. And then we have in it an additional safety valve for the example you brought up, which are what I would call the very small lots. So if you have a lot that's less than 50 feet and width, in addition to all your other entitlements, you have to get what's called a narrow lot entitlement and that's a specific site plan review approval. Looking at that specific issue about not creating sort of a funky shotgun design due to the nature of the small lot and it's really meant to encourage either that development did not happen on that particular site because not a good site for development or for them to explore acquiring an adjacent site so that they can do a higher quality development and not just use the small lot. So we have those safety valves in place to prevent exactly that poor quality that you're asking about. Okay. So clearly our design standards are going to be more important than ever moving forward, and that's it. I know we are engaged in a plan called the Uptown Plan and for most of Uptown. I want to thank the several community members who I have recommended to work with staff and hopefully the process is open to anyone who wants to be engaged in that process moving forward. And so that plan, can you explain how that will drive this? Absolutely. So we know it's a big city and we know every portion of the city is different. But we know also that there is a great amount of need and opportunity. And the uptown area, which is a large portion of Council District eight and also includes Council District nine, the post mayor's district. So we worked we acquired grant funds from Sky. And what we're doing is a comprehensive community vision process and then writing zoning regulations for the uptown area, looking at commercial corridors and industrial areas and areas of change. So we've just started that effort. That's a year long community effort with opportunities for every community, organization and every individual to be part of that process. And that is step zero and step one of implementing this land use element, because that's where we're going to start. We're going to start in uptown and we're going to work with that community to partner with them and make sure they get their vision for that community realized. And then we're going to take those lessons learned and apply them as we move into other parts of the city after we've we've completed that work. And in your district and the vice mayor's district. I thank you for explaining that. I will say that I've heard the term unintended consequences regarding the elderly and moving forward, and certainly we want to avoid that. But I would say that the best way to avoid unintended combat consequences is to actually have a plan. And I think. We need to move forward with a plan this evening. But that said, unintended consequences come with just about every policy that we engage in as policymakers. We try to be reasonable. We try to be smart and and bring in as many stakeholders as process in the process to avoid that. And so, with that said, I am prepared to make just a few adjustments. Bear with me. So. And before I do that, I did want to just just get some clarification. The the multi-story, multiple family, residential, moderate density I'm sorry, neighborhood serving centers or corridor moderate density definition that doesn't just include housing or mixed use housing, does it? No. So that designation, which is a mixed use designation, allows for a mix of uses. So you might have a apartment building, you might have a traditional retail one story retail center, you might have a mixed use building in those areas where more height is allowed, where you have ground floor retail and you have residential above, you might have an office use. It's flexible within a full range of uses, basically uses that are not industrial in nature. So like I said, most of the focus has been on housing. But this land use development or land use element can also improve economic development in certain corridors with office space and companies like laser fish. Correct as a multistory. So so thank you for that Councilmember. And, you know, we may have spent a lot of time in the presentation talking about housing because there were a lot of public questions about housing. But accomplishing the city's employment goals and expanding employment opportunities for all Long Beach residents is just as an important and big part of this plan as the housing related goals. So I wanted to go there because I am looking at this from the lens of also hopefully creating economic development and jobs in our community as well. And that when I say I welcome the investment in my district, I welcome that type of investment as well. So I'd like to make a motion to direct staff to make the following changes to the maps in my district. I'd like to add to this. For the neighborhood serving place type along Long Beach Boulevard, from Cher Park to the northern edge of my district, please reduce the height from four stories to three stories along Market Street between Long Beach Boulevard and Lime Avenue. For the area currently shown as Neighborhood Services Place type with a four story maximum, please reduce the height to three stories. Additionally, within that same area on both sides of Plymouth Street, east of Long Beach Boulevard, over to Locust Street. Please change the place type from neighborhood serving to multi-family low density place type and reduce the height from maximum to a maximum of three stories. Along Atlantic Avenue from Lewis Street to South Street at the northern edge of my district. Please reduce the height maximum from four stories to three stories. Also, please change the place type for this eastern portion of the Neighborhood Service Center corridor from Lime Avenue to Harlem Olive. For residential properties only, remove this from neighborhood serving place type and make it founding and contemporary neighborhood place type with a two store story height maximum . For those existing commercial properties along market. Please keep those in the neighborhood serving place type. Along South Street reduce the height limit from four stories to three stories, from dairy to Walnut along South Street, east of Paramount. Please change from in contemporary to multifamily moderate with a four story height limit. Along Orange Avenue from 52nd Street to South Street. After reviewing the existing build conditions with staff along the corridor and considering that there is already various apartment complexes existing, I believe it would be best to continue allowing multifamily housing opportunities there. Therefore, please increase the height to three stories and change the place type on both sides of Orange Avenue from Jackson Street to South Street. Two multifamily residential low density south of Jackson Street down to 52nd Street. Please make that neighborhood serving corridor a low density place type for the northeast corner of Orange and 52nd Street in the same area along Market Street from Orange Avenue to Lewis Street. Given the existing mix of commercial and multifamily development, please change the place type from founding and contemporary to neighborhood, serving low density with a three storey height limit. For the area bounded by 52nd Street, Mountainview Longest Boulevard in L.A. River, which is currently proposed at multi-family with a four story maximum. Please revise the map to reduce the proposed density from four stories to three stories. Just look for the area near Dooley School on Long Beach Boulevard. Have a few changes. I'm directing staff to reduce the height in the two multi-family place types on both sides of Long Beach Boulevard, just south of Dooley School, from four stories to three stories. Additionally, west of Long Beach Boulevard, between Delamar and 49th Street, please reduce the heights to a two story maximum. I am directing staff to change the place type within that area between Peace Street and Del Amo to go from a multifamily to a found in a contemporary neighborhood. The remaining should stay multifamily place type for the parcels where existing multifamily developments exist today at the location of Rosarito School, north of Los Altos Park. Please reduce to two story maximum and change the multifamily to founding and contemporary place type. Along San Antonio Drive, just east of Bixby Park. For the small portion on the other side of San Antonio, there's currently proposed that Neighborhood Service Center. Four Story High limit, please. Reduced to three stories heights. North of San Antonio, where the alley behind Trader Joe's, west of Elm. An alley west of Atlantic from San Antonio to Freeland State Street. Please change the place, type to multifamily, and reduce the height to a three storey height maximum. Along a Long Beach Boulevard from Bixby Road to southern side of San Antonio. Please reduce the height limit from four stories to three stories for both the neighborhood serving and multi-family place types there. Maintain Long Beach Boulevard, a four story high limit from size San Antonio, just south of 44th Street, and increase the height limit for the property at 43 Long Beach Boulevard to seven stories. And that is an existing seven storey building. On the western side of Atlantic Avenue from 45th Street. Halfway down the block along Atlantic, where existing residential developments ends and commercial uses begin. Please change from neighborhood serving to founding and contemporary neighborhood place type with a two story maximum. And lastly along Atlantic from 51st Street to market, reduce the proposed high limit from four stories to three stories. Those are my changes. I want to thank the staff for your indulgence. I want to thank my residents for their their input. I did take into consideration to the process that I wasn't invited to in and the map that was presented earlier. And with that, I would just say that, again, the guide for my decision making in this process was, number one, transparency, but consistency and balance. I don't think the 1989 process was as consistent and balanced as we are today when it comes to the eighth District. There was and there's people who have been around a long time have talked about the differences and the dichotomy between how north of the Alamo is treated versus South the dilemma. I have sought to be consistent with my approach all the way through the eighth District instead of being a tale of two districts. We're going to be one consistent district. Thank you very. Much. Thank you. Councilmember Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And, you know, being District nine, you are typically the last to speak. But thank you all who are still here. I don't know if the firefighters are here, but they did a great job. The fire marshal with that, you know, let's give him a round of applause. I'm not there anymore. But with the public comment, the fire marshal did a great job. Thanks to everyone who's paid attention, this process, I know there's still people at home watching this process because they're texting me. So. So thank you all for engaging. I know we have a diversity of opinion in our city, and that's democracy. And we have to, you know, politics, all parties and all that. The saying all politics is local, right? Is your neighborhood. All right? I own my neighborhood. I'm proud of my neighborhood. And I would I would be just as engaged and concerned as you. So I won't paint you in broad strokes. Our community is very diverse, and the same goes to the points of view. And I hope that you don't paint certain areas of town in broad strokes either. So it's a dialog. I want to start. I want to start. And what I'm going to do is because there's you know, there's a lot of people here who I don't know that they have the right picture of of North Long Beach. So I'm going to start by describing and introducing you to District nine. So it's a great community. It's a community with a lot of investment taking place, $250 million of public and private investment taking place right now from the newest, largest, most modern library in our system. The Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library are our most modern and largest fire fighter station, our city fire station 12 $130 million investment into Jordan high schools modernization with the measure K improvements. And just this past weekend we broke ground on the Halton Park Community Center, which is the only community center project that we're really proud of. Almost 100 years in the making community and a project funded by measuring, we are home to very historic manufacturing space. For example, many people don't know that we built Teslas in North Long Beach. We've got to see. The only Toyota plant west on the West Coast is in District nine in North Long Beach. We've got a bunch of aerospace supply chain manufacturers like Weber Metals and other facilities right here in North Long Beach. We're a bedroom community. Someone here spoke and mentioned the neighborhood who was triangle as a neighborhood where I owned a home eight years ago. Who is triangle that's 77% homeownership and who is just it's some of the highest levels of home ownership in some of these precincts and census tracts across the whole city, 77%. So it's a great community, but there are changes that need to take place. You've got outdated land use on corridors. Most recently, we had a conversation here City Council about outdated motels. City Council has done a lot of work about overconcentration of liquor stores, blight on our corridors, vacant lots and things like that. That all signal that we, the neighborhoods and the business corridors, they don't they don't they don't match great neighborhoods, lack of investment, our business corridors. So frankly, we're about the business of change in North Long Beach. And we have to be. Because some things need to change. We're not lucky enough. Someone said the term lucky. We're not lucky enough to just say no or no change. That's not a luxury that we have. There are some things that need to change. I want to thank Councilmember Urunga for bringing up the open space issue. The data tells us what is it that in north and west Long Beach you have one acre per thousand, one acre of open space per thousand people in population in north and west Long Beach. In other areas you have as much as 16 to 17 acres per thousand people in the same city, one acre per thousand, 16 acres per thousand in the same city. And so the point there is that and there's and frankly, there's, you know, you've got other issues needs to be addressed. Like, for example, there's, you know, Colin Powell Elementary School. It's surrounded on four sides by industrial and trucking. You don't have a single bank in the entire district, a lack of retail. You've got two freeways that contribute to poor air quality. And. And the original maps had some of the highest density levels outside of the downtown take place there. Frankly, increased density shouldn't be in the places, shouldn't be placed in areas that are least equipped to support healthy lifestyles. Health has to be the lens that we look at this from. We shouldn't look at the areas that are most overburdened, least invested in infrastructure and say, let's place the most density there. It doesn't make sense, but there are opportunities. And you either I do support and I'm very proud of, for example, new industrial place types. I think this is brilliant. This encourages cleaner, more modern industrial uses and allows us to address problem sites. For example, there's a 75 year old oil refinery in North Long Beach called the Edgington refinery. Most people know it as Paramount Petroleum, but it hasn't been Paramount Petroleum for three years. It's been closed down. This change allows us to facilitate the types of investment that looks forward and leans forward, looks at things like e-commerce, cleaner jobs, clean tech, allows for an emerging economy, allows us to think about this industrial space in North Long Beach, not as someone you want, somewhere you want to avoid, but rather an opportunity for investment like we see happening at Douglas Park. That's the kind of investment and industrial that we need to be talking about. It will help to set a new design standard in our city. And so I completely support that. I want to say a few things about history because there is some context here. So, you know, I came across this article and I won't say how I came across it, but it is this an L.A. Times article of December 13th, 1990. It says Multi-story housing issue touches off debate and is talking about Long Beach, L.A. Times. And what's interesting is it quotes the mayor and the planning commission and it says here, Anthony taught us, taught? Yeah, taught us. Twitter is Tortorici. 1990, I was in elementary school at a joint meeting of the City Council and Planning Commission. You hear that joint meeting? So the conversation wasn't just council district. It was citywide, a joint meeting of City Council Planning Commission. This week, Long Beach officials. City officials must stop shoving high density housing in the center of town where parks and schools are already overloaded, where there is little community resistance. That's what the planning commissioner said. Our land use policy has turned into a political document that promotes economic segregation toward a reset. We've got to break that pattern. That was 1990. Then you had elected officials at the same meeting quoted here saying politicians risk being voted out of office if they don't listen to their constituents. If you put high density here, people like Les Robins or Ernie Kell will not be here long. They acknowledge the political realities of this issue. That was almost 30 years ago. Now, what was the result? Now, this is of that way of thinking is here are documents. These are documents pulled from the 89 land use update talking about two adjacent neighborhoods, North Long Beach and Bixby. This one's paramount and South Street is actually a neighbor. The map incorporates the neighborhood I live in here. And if you look at, you know, sort of in Bixby Knolls, it says design controls and architecture compared. This is a summary summary of neighborhood description and analysis. In Bixby, notices are architectural conformance. In the Bixby Knolls neighborhood should be considered mandatory. New infill developments must reflect the low residential scale which predominates. Material colors, textures must be conforming or compatible with surrounding buildings. Now, let's look. Less than a mile away. And the neighborhood that I live in. Design. Design controls and architectural compatibility. It says no significant, significant architectural styles are present in this area. Architectural conformance should only be mandatory with respect to scale. No standard whatsoever for development. 1989, this was the standard in 1989 and 1990. I'm not going to call the red line, but I'm to say a lack of focus and attention on certain areas of town. And we know we've seen the evidence. This is almost 30 years ago. This is a school system, this systemic institutional problems that we need to address. That's what it is. And we we have to look forward. What was consistent then and that's changed now is that there was a significant lack of engagement in that area then, and it's different now, but it's an example of when you don't have a seat at the table, you end up on the menu. We hear a lot. This is an example. That's not the city. That's not the kind of legacy I want to leave while I'm here on city council. We can't make decisions based on political fear. We have to think think about what people are going to look back and say 30 years from now. So, so, okay. So we talked about the history and I'm going to sort of narrow it down now. So there are some there are some some things that we should talk about now that's not kicking the can down the road and that are smart and our conversation based on dialog and reason rather than and quality of life, frankly, rather than fear. So I'm going to have some broader recommendations and I'm going to have some more district specific recommendations. So, one, I thought, Councilman, also going to say this point, I'm going to say this. If you look at the ten people on the dais, six of them got here for the same reason, education. Six people on this dais out of ten got this location, came to this area for education, whether it's college, frankly, whether it's Cal State, Long Beach, Cal State, Dominguez Hills. And we're a city that places a real focus on education. That's important. We talk about college promise. We talk about all of these different things, but we need to do a better job planning and counting for education. You've got areas like Colin Powell K through eight academy surrounded on four sides by industrial and trucking. You've got no community college presence whatsoever in North Long Beach, an area that needs career, technical education and a focus on higher ed. And it's the presence of 100,000 residents, a fifth of the city's population you've got. So what I'm going to ask for, in addition to what we do tonight, I'm going to ask staff to recommend the staff take a look at where we let staff take a look at the feasibility of establishing an educational element in our general plan. And so, by the way, this isn't a new idea. In fact, Hayward, California has an education element. This is a copy of Riverside, California's educational element. Fullerton has one. Plano, Texas National City, California. Carlsbad, California. A number of cities have this, and the purpose is to look at strategic and innovative partnerships that we do have establishes goals and policies to improve education and learning opportunities for all residents. And the goals can address early childhood education, access to child care, school performance, reputation, school facilities, amenities, college education, education to job, job, jobs, pathways, lifelong learning and libraries. So we do a lot of education, but we got to do a better job. And I think it should be a part of our planning efforts to plan for where our students going to go to school, where are they going to live, where higher education people going to live. So this is sort of separate, but I think it's come out through this issue. So. So, yeah, so that's one recommendation. Secondly, I support the conversation that came out that said maybe we shouldn't look at 20 years. We should look at a shorter period like five years. I support that. I support the annual updates, the planning commission biannual. I think Councilmember Gonzalez mentioned biannual or every two years at city council and council members can you know, at any point request that that planning commission update come to the city council at a study session. I support these things. But one thing I do want to add into this recommendation, when we do the update, when we do this update, we should take a look and report back on through an equity lens that looks at and this is similar to what Councilman Gonzalez talked about. But I want to talk specifically about investing into outreach into historically low participating groups, which include students, low wage workers and renters. And frankly, if we can, single parents, because they can't get down here to participate in these things and they have a lot of needs. So those are my broader recommendations. Finally, we'll get to District nine recommendations. So I followed this process when it was staff driven, then when it was in front of the planning commission. And, you know, I made a commitment to my residents that when it finally arrives in front of city council, I'm going to go engage every one of my neighborhoods. And that's what we did. So we broke into clusters. We broke Long Beach Boulevard into Starkey College Square, Coolidge Triangle and Longwood Association. We had three meetings there. We had brought all the neighborhoods along Atlantic Avenue together so that the Forest Park and Highland Park and thank them for coming together. And we talked about the changes on Atlantic Avenue. We brought all the neighborhoods together on Artesia Boulevard and South Street, which are Ramona Park, Hamilton, Grant Collins, the Collins St Francis Andy Street area, everyone around South Street, RTC. We brought them together. We went to the Mingus Pizza. We had pizza and and we worked it out and we talked about every single corridor. So I want to go through some of these some of these changes. So first, there's going to be a question. So what we did was essentially to summarize what we did was we recommended we fixed where there was misplaced density. We preserved neighborhoods. We addressed this issue of corridors not being congruent or reflecting the neighborhoods. We modernized our industrial space. We expanded commercial community commercial because we have a lack of banks and actual retail and commercial, and we place density in areas that make sense and help us achieve a public policy outcome. So the so I have one question and then I have some recommendations. So one with our Mr. Koontz, with our Uptown plan, there was a lot of conversation about in areas where it makes sense, portions of Artesia Boulevard Place, portions of Atlantic Avenue. Can we require that the ground floor to be exclusively retail on the ground floor? Thank you for the question, Mr. Vice Mayor. And I feel like we spent our quality time together at midnight, so some day we're going to. Mop the floor. After midnight, we're going. To have to do this meeting in reverse order from nine but down to one. But yes, so we have the opportunity, actually a unique opportunity. And Councilman Austin, in your district for the uptown process to come up with very specific regulations and we absolutely can require ground floor commercial uses. We want to make sure we get those uses correctly. Obviously, we don't need more liquor stores in your and CTA, but what we do need is what's missing, which are high quality restaurants, basic services, basic goods, banking for people to get. So we want to get that mix right. And it's it's not about what I think are, quite frankly, what you think. It's about getting that community feedback, which we don't have yet. But at the end of that process, we'll be able to to make those decisions. So, so just to be clear, because it's important that they ask this the ground floor and Atlantic, that's a focus to make it sort of our main street for uptown. We can require ground floor to be activated with retail. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Here are my changes. First, reduce the maximum height along Long Beach Boulevard corridor from 70th Street or the northern city. Limit down to Victoria Street to two stories. Revise the map to change the place type at Artesia Boulevard, west of the 17 Freeway from and from east of Atlantic Avenue. Intersections to both sides of Cherry Avenue from multifamily. Residential. Moderate to multi-family. Residential low. And reduce the height to three stories. So that's one particular portion of Atlantic Avenue where it doesn't make sense to go too moderate. Revise the map to change the place. Type at Artesia Boulevard, east of Atlantic Avenue, intersection to both sides of Cherry Avenue from neighborhood service serving center moderate to Neighborhood Service Center low and reduce the height to three stories. Revise the map to change the place. Type on Artesia Boulevard from cherry to Paramount from neighborhood serving center moderate to community CC community commercial and reduce the height to three stories. So this is the area adjacent to the neo industrial and really close to the freeway where we couldn't do housing anyway. So we're going to take that down and make it community commercial. Revise the map to reduce the height at Artesia Boulevard from Paramount to down to now the avenue from 5 to 4 stories on the north side and from 5 to 3 stories on the South Side, consistent with the Ramona senior apartments that have just been built . So we're going to have consistency on Artesia Boulevard on that portion. Revise the map to change the designation of properties along Atlantic Avenue, south of Artesia to 59th, from south of Artesia down to 59th Street from Neighborhood Service Center. Moderate density to neighbor now see low density and reduce the height on Atlantic Avenue between Artesia and 59th to three stories. Revise the map to change the place. Type at the eastern side of Linden Avenue from Harding Street to 59th, from neighborhood serving center moderate to most multi-family residential low and reduce the height to two stories. Reduce the height along South Street, west of Atlantic, from three stories to two stories. This is the area that's heading into default park. It should gradually, as it becomes more, you know, single family and park space, it should get lower. Reduce the height along South Street, east of Atlantic Avenue to Cherry Avenue from 4 to 3 stories. Revise the map to reduce the height to four stories at South Street, east of Cherry Avenue until Paramount Boulevard. It makes a lot of sense there. There's no single family residential, and there's some spaces that we need to redevelop in that area. Sort of old chop shops and things like that. On the east side of Cherry Avenue, from 2/5 on the east side of Cherry Avenue to 59th Street, revise the NSC, NSC Moderate designation of five stories to neon neo industrial at 45 feet in height justification there it's all industrial is industrial corridor. So we want to make sure that this is consistent with the neo industrial that's all that area. And then finally at South Street, east of Downey Avenue, where it's currently proposed in moderate five stories, want to change the place, type the community commercial. And the reason why is that's one of the where we have a retail shortage that's one of the only large shopping centers we have. You know, that's where L.A. Fitness, the new Starbucks and things like that are. And we want to we don't want to take away some commercial space that is an opportunity for retail. So those are my changes. Thank you very much. And that is the motion. Okay. Okay. I would I'm I'm guessing it's the longest motion in the history of the city of Long Beach. I mean, it has to be. So I want to I do want to thank everyone I know. I want to turn this back to staff. And there may have a couple clarifying questions just to make sure that we have the motion correctly. I know that also before we vote, I want to make sure that Mr. Modica can also explain just from a timing perspective, I know that when the public can expect a kind of a full list, hopefully tomorrow, what the motion was, and then I know you have to work on some new maps as well. So can we go over your clarifying questions in the process? Mr. MODICA Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So we're almost done, I promise. So we wanted to. Clarify something that we heard a couple of councilmembers talk about was loud and clear. You want to be able to have some ability to have some regular reports and also to do kind of a major check in around five years. We want to make sure that we don't set a five year planning horizon because that would mean your general plan would expire and we would be out of compliance with state law. But we do hear loud and clear, you want to come back at five years. So we would suggest having an annual report that we would send to the Planning Commission and the Council detailing some of the things that are happening. And we have the data points here. Every two years we would come. Back and do a kind of a full on look. I think I heard that as a suggestion, and then we would set a target date for within five years for a major revisit of the general plan. The general plan would stay active until you've changed it. But at five years, we would really look at that to see do we need to open it up or can we keep going the way that we would? So if that if I'm not sure who to ask because there are a number of people mentioned that. But if that's the will of the council, we would include that is the motion. Be the make of the motion is basically Richardson. I do believe Councilwoman Pryce and Customer Gonzalez both had parts of that. So if we're okay with that as the of the motion. I'm okay. I'm sorry. I'm dying over here with my throat. I just want to clarify and ask you, Mr. Mota, to clarify that. When we do make a change, it's there's a several year process that goes along with it. And that's why that's why you're suggesting this five year check in. So it's not like we can come and tweak it and then it's effective the next day. Can you talk just a little bit about that? But that amendment is fine with me, absolutely. So that's part of it is this is a long range plan and it does take a long time to do the community outreach, to do the goal. Setting this plan to get to the day we are today took us 13 years, so we wouldn't want the next one to do 13 years, of course. But if we are setting a five year horizon, we need some check ins to know how much level of work do you want us to do in those five years? So we've got some time to plan for that too, and we'll do that during our kind of every two year check in. And then if you decide to really make wholesale changes, then you need to do the IR process and all of those lengthy can outreach and make sure that we're doing the community outreach correctly. So thank you for the question. I do want to mention. Before. You go to the we had one last question because from Durango on, if you could clarify, Mr. Modica, and then you can go into the kind of the schedule. Mr. RINGA. Thank you. During the commentary, there was a reference made to the equestrian trails and that there hadn't been anything appearing in the U.S. regarding that. Could you clarify? Yes, certainly. Councilman Urunga, I can speak to that. She mentioned about the the horse overlay zone. That overlay zone has been in the code for a number of years. It is still active. It is still effective. It is a very specific area and it identifies locations where in development standards for the keeping of horses. And what we also did in the land use element to supplement and to strengthen that what's currently in the zoning code is to have a policy that just recommends strengthening and maintaining that horse property. So there is no intention in this plan for that to go away. It will still be. It has been in effect for a number of years and it will continue to be a fact once this plan is adopted. I just for the record, I just want to read what it says on the page. 145 Under Westside and Wrigley Land Use Strategies Policy 11 it says respect and maintain the equestrian uses within Wrigley Heights and promote shared use and maintenance of the area trail system. That that is correct. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Pearce, did you have another question? Report back, Mr. Modica, in the amendments there was included an equity report. Could we make sure that that is also included in the two year revisit? Yes, certainly. I did want to add there was a number, a number of things that were asked for us to do some additional research and feasibility. So we'll be looking at that for the ones that are easy and makes sense. We'll do those right away. For the ones that take some more timing or require budget or other things, well, they are a process and we can certainly talk about those in the one year or two year or you know, I don't think it'll take us five for those, but the one or two year. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Motor, just to continue your report. Yes. So where we go from here, so we understand now the main motion has been made and all of the changes so we as staff will be putting together for tomorrow will have a list of kind of everything that we've heard from you and that all that's in the motion right now. But we'll have that available. We know you're going to get public questions about what exactly happened and and that will all be written down. We hope to have that. As soon by tomorrow. And then that will all get translated into maps. So we will be creating another set of maps. We know everyone's a visual learner, a lot of people are visual learners, so everything will be in maps. We expect that to take about a week. And then again, we're really still kind of kicking off this process. While this is a big milestone now, we need to go back and do the air. Now that we have a program that you've set for us, that'll likely take about a year and you will see this again in about a year after we do the investment. No analysis to make some final determinations after you've seen the Environ. Take the. Time. Yes, sir. I heard you a year and a day. Got it. So and with that, I think we're good. We're good. All right. We're good, sir. Thank you. With that, there's a motion and a second on the master motion on the floor to adopt all the changes that were made individually by each member of the city council, as well as the staff recommendation, which is a two part recommendation, as it was read by the city clerk on both the the agenda item and also the funding to do the the second phase. Mr. Mason, miss anything? You are there. Okay, Members, go ahead and cast your votes on the motion. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you much. In case. And I want to thank you all for for being here. Believe it or not, we have a council meeting to start now. So we're going to continue on with the council. And I appreciate all before for coming out. And with that, we're going to move on to the council meeting. First item is actually a consent calendar. Can I can I get a motion any second from the consent calendar?