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Long Beach residents and others offer solutions to long-standing problems

All over Long Beach residents are expounding on the topic of “what should be done” on matters from fiscal deficits to resident parking.

Tuesday night’s City Council meeting drew such impassioned rhetoric that one of the attendees fainted away and was removed by stretcher, hopefully to let calmer heads prevail.

What is puzzling about the city’s call for suggestions is that a lot of the answers appear in documents already commissioned by former City Councils.

Need money? Are we being reimbursed by the County for the Point Lookout bus service? Should we review the lease for Waldbaum’s? Shouldn’t we try short term parking meters?



Between 2005 and 2009 the City has commissioned at least three major studies, the second two largely repeating much of the first. The Comprehensive Plan, adopted in Spring 2007 after a 15 month planning process, presented an exhaustive set of proposals designed as “an overall guide for the City’s growth over the next 15 or so years.”

Residential housing replaced Marina

While this esteemed group of engineers were preparing the first plan, the City received a grant to prepare yet another study, this one identifying the Brownfield Opportunity Areas (Bayfront Development) which was already extensively discussed in the Comprehensive Plan.

In 2008, the City Council hired a Parking Specialist to prepare a study that essentially repeated what the original engineers recommended in 2007.

So now that we are absolutely sure what we need to do, what are we waiting for? Some of the recommendations don’t require money, so let’s start there:

ZONING

The writers of the Comprehensive Plan addressed the issue of zoning within the first three pages. Why? Because it is one of the most important aspects of the character of a community.

And since the Long Beach Zoning Ordinance has not been comprehensively amended in 25 years this says something about our priorities.

Residential housing blocks
views to ocean

The city does not have a Site Plan Law so “applications for development or redevelopment are either deemed to comply with existing zoning and are issued a building permit or deemed to require a variance and referred to ZBA.”

Simply put, the lack of a Site Plan Law, Planning Board or “vision” for the city has had a devastating effect on the character and quality of life in our community, especially in the West End.

Here are two of the most egregious examples:

1. Allowing oceanfront residential housing to be built on the narrow street corridors “blocks public visual access and ocean breezes” for the entire community
2. Allowing residential housing to be built on the site of the former marina separates the West End community from “its most significant natural resource”

Now, in the wake of these tragic defamations of our community we are facing yet another challenge to our quality of life: the proliferation of three story homes being built on raw land.

With new FEMA regulations requiring living spaces to begin at least 7 feet above ground level, the fabric of life in the West End is poised to be changed forever.

Three level homes crowd
 narrow streets

The overwhelming height of these newly built houses is literally blocking the sun and breeze for residents living on narrow streets.

WEBA is calling on the city to create a Planning Board  as a first step to “reduce the need for variances and enhance implementation of city wide visual character improvement initiatives” We need a plan folks. Before it’s too late.

Follow www.westendbeautification.org for continuing analysis of how the Comprehensive Plan recommendations can improve the quality of life in our City by the Sea.