Manhattan Beach inches toward plan for downtown
Loreli Cappel, a representative from PMC, a company the city is considering hiring to develop a downtown plan. Photo 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…
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