TITLE
Declare ordinance setting aside and dedicating in perpetuity certain lands owned by the City of Long Beach for public park purposes and uses, read the first time and laid over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for final reading;
DISCUSSION
The Departments of Development Services and Parks, Recreation and Marine have been working collaboratively for more than five years to assure land records, zoning, dedications, and the General Plan designations of parks within the City of Long Beach (City) are accurate, up-to-date, and consistent across multiple regulatory instruments and documents. This current tranche of requests represents major progress toward updating and ensuring appropriate protections for all City parks. On June 20, 2019, the Parks and Recreation Commission recommended the dedication or designation of 28 existing City-owned parks, including any other land use actions needed such as General Plan Amendments, Zoning Code Amendments, and Zone Changes (Attachment A - Parks and Recreation Commission Staff Report). Dedication is the process that applies to City-owned parkland to protect the park in perpetuity for public open space use. The City Charter states that the Parks and Recreation Commission has exclusive authority over all leisure activities in public parks and recreational facilities, controlled or operated by the City; and will recommend to the City Manager and the City Council the dedication of public land for public parks. Together, these regulatory changes provide accurate protections for City parks in perpetuity.
Since June 2019, further assessment of the properties has informed the process and land use actions necessary to ensure the protection and preservation of the parks for open space use by the public in perpetuity by ensuring that each of the 28 park properties has the appropriate General Plan Land Use Element (LUE) PlaceType designation and zoning district and is dedicated as parkland. The 28 parks are being groupe...
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