The citizens of Manhattan Beach will spend five days in January exploring what they would like the city’s downtown to look like.
The city council last week approved a contract with the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a nonprofit land use organization, to have its experts interview 100 people over the five-day period and make recommendations to the city.
“Everyone wants to be involved,” said Mayor Pro Tem Mark Burton. “ULI is the perfect way to bring everyone together.”
ULI has advised cities all over the world in how to make the best use of their land, including Los Angeles, where it recommended redeveloping four miles in downtown LA into a CleanTech Corridor.
Also on the agenda was a vote on whether to accept the city staff’s recommendation of a specific firm to design a plan for downtown, and which of the firm’s proposals to choose. After speaking with a representative from PMC, the private community planning company chosen by city staff, the council decided that doing the ULI study would reduce the cost of the plan, and so it wanted city staff to renegotiate the potential contract with PMC and return with the new figures.
To prepare for the ULI, the council plans a meeting in the next few months to both determine the criteria for deciding who would be interviewed and to choose the interviewees. Council members said the goal was to have an accurate cross section of the various stakeholders involved with the future of downtown.
Councilmember Tony D’Errico commented that the ULI would be a chance to balance the sometimes opposing views of those stakeholders, who include residents, commercial tenants and property owners.
“I think we’re on a page where every one of [the stakeholders] says, ‘Let’s do this, and let’s do this now,’” he said.
Residents have expressed concern over the future of downtown Manhattan Beach as rising rents have shifted its makeup. More chain retailers and real estate offices have replaced the independent local stores that used to occupy the ground floor of many buildings. Some residents who want to preserve the unique charm of downtown have called the city a “victim of its own success.” Their desire to have smaller stores would appear to conflict with landlords’ desire to make as much money as possible off their investments.
At least one council member, David Lesser, and some residents thought that the $125,000 price tag of the five-day ULI was too expensive and suggested that it was overkill. However, the council majority ultimately decided that it was worth it.
“Yes, we’re not New Orleans after the flood,” said Councilmember Amy Howorth, noting that city had also been advised by ULI, “However, by doing such a big push, we’re going to get a lot more buy-in. We have a lot of people engaged right now. Let’s not lose momentum.”
Some people also worried that no action would take place after the exploration process, citing the city’s failure to officially implement a strategic plan developed in 1996.
The representative from PMC, Loreli Cappel, tried to reassure them.
“We’re here to develop a tool that implements action—not just to conduct studies,” she said.
The city put out a request for proposals for a downtown plan earlier this year. Among the firms that responded, city staff chose PMC, which consulted the city on its sewer system in 2010 and 2012. PMC provided the city with two different types of plans that differ in cost and purpose. Then in September, new City Manager Mark Danaj provided the council with the possibility of doing a ULI study. Because the study would eliminate some of the outreach work that was included in PMC’s proposal, the council directed staff to return with a renegotiated contract for them to vote on.
