Long Beach Seeking Comments On Final Draft Of Comprehensive Plan

On Thursday, Long Beach will hold one last community meeting to discuss its Comprehensive Plan before presenting the plan to the City Council.

The meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Long Beach Public Library, located at 111 West Park Ave. The meeting will discuss the specifics of the plan, how public input was utilized in its creation. It will include an overview of the planning process and what stage the project is currently in, zoning and the next phases and break-out groups for a discussion on the contents of the plan.

The Comprehensive Plan is the city's response to Hurricane Sandy and the 2008 financial crisis. It incorporates ideas on how to revitalize the city's economy with resiliency plans to help the city face the next major storm.

"A Comprehensive Plan is the first phase in moving the city forward," the plan reads. "The plan encompasses traditional planning elements such as transportation, infrastructure, housing, land use and the economy. Additionally, this plan has embraced innovative and modern planning concepts that include environmental resilience and productive and sustainable economic strategies. The plan contains a set of phased proposals and potential programs that are within the context of the community and focus resilient redevelopment in the city’s opportunity areas that would both strengthen the economy and preserve community character. The Comprehensive Plan provides an overall guide for the city’s growth over the next 30 years. It provides the context within which the City and its boards can make rational land use decisions."

The plan was funded by grants from the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA) and the Department of State (DOS). It was put together through a great deal of research and outreach to the public during many meetings that were held since 2014. It recommends changes that the city can make to the bayfront, the oceanfront and the central business district.

At the bayfront -- specifically the North Park community -- the plan calls for more affordable housing, enhance and resilient infrastructure, more public space, better connection to the rest of the city and more.

Along the oceanfront, the plan takes a different direction: it conceptualizes a large, public-private partnership to create a public space landmark near the city's Ocean Beach Park and along the boardwalk.

In the business district, the plan conceptualizes an area with more affordable, transit-oriented housing and mixed-use buildings. The hope is to attract more people to live in the area, who could then in turn act as workers and start their own businesses. This could help create a year-round economy in the business district.

The plan is not a concrete structure that the City Council would have to follow, but a set of guidelines and principals that, it hopes, would improve the city and make it a better place to live.

"Following the devastation of Superstorm Sandy, it became evident that the city’s ability to adapt and recover had become central to the identity of Long Beach -- and resiliency would serve as both a defining characteristic of the community and a planning strategy for looking towards the future," the plan reads. "As such, the CP details resiliency strategies to protect the City’s natural and built environments, to stimulate economic development, and to provide for the health, safety, and general welfare of its citizens."

You can read the plan online by clicking here. There is also a hard copy available to read in City Hall.

Photo: Patch