TITLE
Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute an agreement with EDAW Associates for FY 07 and FY 08, for an amount not to exceed $970,000, to assist in the City’s General Plan Update;
DISCUSSION
The General Plan is a State-mandated document which serves as the vision guiding development and growth of the City over a 20-year period . Every jurisdiction in California is required to produce and maintain a General Plan, and all plans, projects and developments must be consistent with this document . Moreover, it is a document that the City of Long Beach has not revisited in many years. The City is embarking upon a comprehensive update to establish the vision for the next 20 years.
Typically, there are seven elements to the General Plan, and those elements are stand-alone documents. The Long Beach General Plan will integrate Land Use, Transportation, Economic, Urban Design and Historic Preservation into one comprehensive integrated document that provides clear direction and a vision on how the City will grow and change over time. Over the years, many plans have been created, such as the Central Area Strategic Guide for Development and North Long Beach Strategic Guide for Redevelopment, the Port Master Plan, the Jobs and Business Plan, and multiple Design Guidelines, to name a few. These plans reflect the goals of the community, however, the ability to implement such plans is limited since they are not integrated into the City's regulatory framework. In order for these plans to be effective, they must be incorporated into the goals, objectives, and polices set out in the City's General Plan . This General Plan update will focus on incorporating the work done in the above-mentioned plans into one document, that will serve as the vehicle to effect development form and use type for the next 20 years.
PROJECT SCOPE
As with the first phase of the General Plan update, the second phase will incorporate a comprehensive community outreach component, multipl...
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