Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding title 22 (UPLAN Zoning Code) which adds new zoning districts and regulations to implement the 2019 long beach general plan land use element update and adoption, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
We have three hearings. We're going to start. We're going to start with 49. I'd like to introduce our development services director. Oscar Orsi to introduce staff for this presentation. Thank you, Mayor, and members of the City Council. This is the first phase of our implementation of the land use element vis a vis the zoning code. And I'm happy to introduce our new planning manager, Patricia. Patricia Defender for who will give you a brief presentation. Good evening, Mayor and council members Patricia defend Darfur. The item before you is the establishment of new zoning districts and rezoning of Artesia and Atlantic, Artesia Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue. That is part of the uptown planning, land use and neighborhood strategies or new plan process. Next slide. Please. This item has three main components. Thank you, sir. The establishment involves the establishment of a new Title three Municipal Code, Title 22 to facilitate the update of the zoning code with new zoning districts that will implement the 2019 General Plan Land Use Element Update and transition from existing the existing Zoning Code Title 21 two to the new zoning code. It also involves the adoption of 12 new zoning tools, specifically that implement three place types within the journal that were established by the general plan. I'll go into that in more detail. The 12 zones are comprised of six primary citywide zones and six series zones, which are tailored to the north Long Beach area. And then finally, the rezoning of properties on Artesian Atlantic to one of the six new acreage zones. This diagram just briefly just illustrates the relationship between the general plan and the new zones. So the city, of course, has a general plan in 2019. The land use element was updated and the City Council adopted an urban design element. The land use element established 14 place types. The zoning code implements the general plan. However, the current zoning code is does not have the range of tools that are necessary to implement the new general plan, taste type, place types. And therefore that is why the new zoning code is the Title 22 is being proposed as an update. And this the diagram kind of on the radar shows the 12 new zones and the fact that there are six that are tailored for North Long Beach. The planning process was a collaborative effort between the city and the community that resulted in the proposed zoning tools that you that are before the council today and that help implement the community's goals and vision for an area that is a thriving, livable and equitable community where existing residents benefit from the future investment and change in the area. This map shows the area that has been under study there. As our director noted, the plan process planning process is divided into two phases. The first phase is indicated by the orange on the map here, the two corridors that we've been discussing, the phase two, all that is currently in process and is expected to wrap up next year. It will address zoning and other considerations in the rest of the area on this map. This is just a timeline that kind of really is intended to communicate the level and extent of outreach that was done for this project. This project has had extensive outreach in the form of advisory committee meetings, workshops. Work audits, demonstration projects. The next couple of slides, kind of give more detail on the timeline. I'm not going to go into that in there in a lot of detail, but just highlight some of the more near term milestones. The zoning districts, the zoning code, draft zoning code that is before the council was first released to the public in May of last year, and it went to the Planning Commission in November, sorry, in June, and is now here before the City Council in November. This is just a division statement that was developed in conjunction with the community, with the community. A number of technical studies were prepared in order to inform the zoning recommendations, including an extensive parking parking study and feasibility testing of different development standards. This slide shows the map of the general plan place types that were adopted as part of the land use element. And you can see the three different place types represented on these corridors and the heights that are permitted per the general plan, which range vary between three and four stories. So the next slide, this is the zoning map itself and you can see how those place types were translated into these zones. The two kind of orange colored zone zones represent primarily residential but mixed use zones that also allow commercial. The three blue shades of blue represent different mixed use zones that allow both commercial, residential and combinations thereof at various types of uses and intensities. And the the pink indicates the area that is zoned for solely commercial use. So no residential is allowed there. To characterize the nature of these zone changes. These are limited to the corridors and involve minimal single family. They implement changes are already established in the general plan in terms of allowable uses and heights. The new zones limit new uses of certain types that are concentrated in the area, that are existing uses, are grandfathered in and are permitted to remain. The expanded use is allowed by these zones. Zoning tools are designed to encourage housing and a wider range of commercial uses to address existing needs for housing, services and jobs. The next few slides I'll try to go through very quickly. Just summarize the rezoning recommendations. In general, the uses are broader use categories that allow flexibility for new and evolving businesses. The use regulations support desired uses in the in the neighborhoods such as grocery stores and institutional educational uses. And it generally expands allowances for mixed use and residential development in areas that previously would only allow commercial. In terms of land use. There's incentives for, as I noted, desirable uses that were expressed as desirable uses by the community. And it places limitations on new uses that are concentrated in the area, such as motels, drive thrus, off site, alcohol and the like. Okay. So development standards, generally speaking, the new zones are form based and design oriented. They encourage buildings that are oriented to the street and that activate street frontages. There are new tailored open space regulations that scale with the size of the lots. In response to the shallow ness of some lots on commercial corridors and other physical site constraints. Okay. All right. I'm having trouble advancing the slide here. Let's see. Almost done. Okay. There we go. Parking in general has been modified to standardize requirements across a wide range of commercial. Commercial uses to facilitate building re-use and parking reductions are used as an incentive. So this find that this slide is just a recap that reminds the council and mayor of the different components of this project . And that includes, I think, that our civil deputy director wants to kind of summarize here in the slide. Sure. Thank you, Petra. So so tonight is very much about Councilman Austin and Councilman Richardson and these changes to their district. But I just wanted to place into context what this means for land use in the city and the tools that we're developing. Once they're in the toolbox, once they're in our municipal code, they may be able to, in the future, address issues elsewhere in the city. So the parking issue that we're addressing in this area is not totally dissimilar from the parking district that you find in Belmarsh or in Naples, in Councilmember Price's district. It's not that different from area south of here, south of the project area and in Bixby Knolls and in areas throughout the city. What's also similar is this is about context sensitive new development. This is about what is new development look like that's less dense, less intense than what you find downtown, but still brings new housing into our city and still transforms our commercial corridors, you know, whether they're in central Long Beach, north Long Beach or elsewhere. And it's really about being able to have a framework and then customize for every single neighborhood. So here you have a series of zones which address issues in North Long Beach. But at some point in the future, when we're addressing land use in central Long Beach or coastal Long Beach, we could have that same level of customization with whatever the community desires are in that particular location. So I just wanted to give you that preview because this is the first of many efforts we'll be doing over the next several years, and that concludes our presentation. Thank you. Are there any public comment on this? Yes. Our first speaker is carelessly. Carelessly. Our next speaker is Paul Babcock. Hello. Hi. Well, my. Cordless. Go ahead. Hello? Please begin. Hi, this is CALLER. All right. Okay. I'm concerned with adopting title 22 on zoning without public outreach meetings that include the whole city. Whatever is being adopted in the ninth district will undoubtedly be used throughout the city. I have never received an invitation to a first outreach session on this. The staff report is 325 pages long. I believe this is a complex topic. It is of interest to residents. It may be a great plan, but we haven't had the opportunity to learn about it. When you purchase a piece of real estate, you purchase the zoning. It is a key facet of a property description. Changing the zoning definitions is a major move. You're affecting each homeowner's personal real estate investment. It has been said that the American dream is to have a home with a front yard backyard and a white picket fence . And while I acknowledge there are other choices and opportunities out there, the group, the Work Picket Fence Group, is normally concerned with density. I'm told the new zoning document has made changes such as defining, set back or now the amount of setback required as measured from the sidewalk. In the future it will be measured from the street. What we'd like to have is the opportunities that the ninth district has. We would like to have the opportunity to understand the proposed building changes before there are certain. Thank you. The next speaker is Paul Babcock. Hello. Hello, this is Paul Babcock. I'm a resident of the fifth District, and I also provide, uh, housing in the third district. I'm very concerned about this, uh, measure and that there's been no participation from the third or the fifth District residents. And for the rest of the city, besides North Long Beach, as far as I know, the ninth District. This would be applied across the city. And I'm concerned about the far reaching effects of this and how it would affect my property and other properties within the city and how how it would affect my life and my quality of life for my family and for my residents and my rental units. Additionally, density is a big issue and they'll make sure, as you know, it's very dense and we don't want it any denser than it is. And we also don't want this density to pervade in the fourth District, and we'd like to have that taken into consideration. And lastly, remove the language that applies to the the whole city and give an opportunity for neighborhood outreach and discussion and understanding of the. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this item. Thank you, Governor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I certainly appreciate the comments that folks have given out. I support this. This project was planned. I will start with based on these these comments, that this is a phased in approach. We began this process well before the Louie process conducted with the focus on North Long Beach, really addressing some longstanding issues and setting a vision for the next 30 years that pull away from motels, liquor stores and move toward healthy food and things like that. And it became a great opportunity to test out new zoning that's really creative, innovative, some and the things that they've achieved. But as a phased in approach, that means we're starting here. But if there's any additional zoning takes place in other areas of town. They'll have to go through their own planning and outreach process. So this is not affecting anything in the fifth District of the third District. But we are really excited for what it does here in the ninth District. A few more reasons why I'm excited for it is that it's anywhere or it is only north. Bobby It limits the liquor store, something that I focused on, something that our predecessors focused on, something that Councilman Alston is focused on. Eliminate it. Make it more difficult to prioritize drive thrus and motels and automotive uses. But it's now prioritized healthy food options and housing and sit down restaurants, grocery store, the medical institution, institutional uses like a new beach city college. It also encourages safe pedestrian activity that incentivizes local employment through some really innovative steps and features. It incentivizes features that minimize future greenhouse gas emissions, such as tree planting and cool roofs and solar installations and bike infrastructure. So we're really we're really proud of this. One thing I do want to mention is that there's a lot of innovation in this plant. And one issue that's really been an issue for us is the overabundance of overconcentration of off sale liquor, liquor stores. And what this does is it moves away from the formulaic, you know, entities. You know, looking at how many you have in a census tract to determine whether it's appropriate and moves to something that's more contextual and emphasizes mixed use and good design principles and things like that. So we're making decisions around around liquor that prioritizes, you know, establishing sit down restaurants as opposed to more liquor stores in North Lombard . It's it's as you mentioned, it's designed to address housing issues is incredibly important. And at the same time, it's incentivizing things that we mean fitness uses, medical uses, things like that. One thing I do want to acknowledge is together, put together. We just adopted we just voted on the design of Radar Boulevard front. That's incredibly important because that is the public right of your medians, your lighting, your pedestrian environment, your bikes and all of these things. Your signal. And then this updates the zoning priorities of Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue. So together, comprehensively, it's just that a new sort of a comprehensive new vision, RTG Boulevard, a public right away and the private the private side of the house. So that's incredibly important. I want to thank all the staff has worked on this. Christopher Koch remembers our first conversations. My first term, when we talked about doing some sort of a masterplan. He partnered with us to go to tag Early Service President's Gang for that. And I was a regional council member and I put forward $250,000 based on the initial work that we did in-house with Alisyn and Christopher with the Guiding Principles. A number of staples up at the table for that. And we're in a really good place. So I really want to thank and I want to thank all the city staff and all the community partners who contributed to this plan. And this is really important for. Thank you for both. Councilman Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I see this this item, this plan is an important step and milestone for implementing a new vision for North Long Beach. We have worked for several years to get to this point. The planning process started as in early 2018. It has involved a number of community meetings, visioning exercises and different community events, including walk audits that I've participated in with the community, with community members along the corridors in a demonstrated demonstration project that actually happened in the North Village on Atlantic Avenue. So so to the point that it hasn't been a community input. These were all public meetings. They were well advertised, and we encouraged a lot of public participation in this process. The I believe that the zoning changes and recommended zoning changes before us, and this document will help the Atlantic Corridor, as well as the Artesia Corridor, facilitate the new development that will help us realize this vision. It's so important for our economic development, but our housing needs, as well as many of the points raised by Councilmember Rich, said that, you know, there is a vision, there's a clear direction in terms of where we are going. It looks like mixed use is going to be in our future, particularly along these corridors in North Long Beach. And as the staff report indicated, the new zoning calls not only address what types of uses are allowed, but for the first time it helps address the look of our corridors. This is especially relevant for a portion of Atlantic Avenue that's in the eighth District. And I want to remind everybody that this is there's two two council districts involved in this plan, a district as well as a ninth district. But the there's an area of the district that is designated as an opportunity zone. And so this type of plan only helps with investment and interest in our community. I'd like to thank the residents who participated in the planning process, as well as the development services staff who worked extensively on this effort, as well as engaging up North Long Beach residents and stakeholders. And tonight is completion of phase one of this plan. And I encourage residents to continue to be involved in Phase two, which is currently underway. I will address zoning and land uses throughout the rest of North Long Beach, and so there's opportunity still for community involvement. I support this wholeheartedly and ask for my council colleagues support as well. Great Councilman Mongo. Thank you. We did receive. Some calls on this item and an email. I wanted to just clarify for the public and have it on the public record. That. Implementation of any. Of these new zoning, these new zones that are being. Created through the vote. Tonight, would have an additional community input process in the communities where those zones would potentially. Be added currently there are no plans to add those. Anywhere else but the uptown. Area. But if I could get a confirmation from city staff that before. They would be rolled into any additional community, there would be a. Community input process? Councilmember That is correct. This is tailored for the North Palm Beach area and subsequent phases will include public comment and public meetings. Wonderful. Thank you. That was their concern. And I wanted to make sure that they knew that that was correct. We weren't able to get a hold of them before the meeting. So thank you for that. I hope they're listening. Thank you. A roll call, please. District one. I district to. I am district three i. District four. I. District five. I just got six, I think District seven. I District eight. District nine. All. Motion carries. Great. Thank you. Next. Next hearing is turning 50. I'm sorry. I'm 50. Please.