Long Beach Reacts to 2nd+PCH Project Defeat

The 2^nd + PCH development project might be dead, but the conversation revolving around its denial is certainly alive.

Long Beach City Council shocked many in attendance at Tuesday’s council meeting, as it by a .

The proposed 2^nd + PCH project would have been located at the southwest corner of Pacific Coast Highway and 2nd Street, among the busiest intersections in Long Beach. The project borders would have reached from that intersection, close to the Seal Beach city border.

The proposed project, , included a 12-story building, a 100-room hotel, 155,000 square feet of retail space, a science center, restaurant, and 275 residential units.

On Wednesday, City Council members, those in favor and those opposed to the 2^nd + PCH development, reacted to their Tuesday decision, as did developer David Malmuth of David Malmuth Development.

“I don’t know,” said Malmuth when asked why he thought the development was rejected. “We’re obviously very disappointed and surprised. I think there is going to be a lot of disappointed people and my view is that this is a huge lost opportunity for the city.”

‘Disappointment’ was a term tossed out by City Councilwoman Rae Gabelich, who was unable to temper her dismay over Tuesday's verdict.

“’Disappointing’ is not even a strong enough word,” Gabelich said. “What happened last night set Long Beach back many, many years. I think we’ll be looking at a blighted property for the next decade.”

Gabelich, who has been in office for nearly eight years, expressed her frustration with the precedence the city is setting for future developers targeting Long Beach.

“We just sent another bad message to future developers that Long Beach is not friendly,” she added. “The fact that we led this group on – this has been eight years – I thought this was going to be the one.”

"City staff has been going down this path of telling the developer of 2nd + PCH what they needed to do, working with them to put a project together, that could actually be approved. Going as far as the planning commission, going with staff recommendations, to have it turn upside down, is such a slap in the face for the future of Long Beach.”

Gabelich believed that considering the project had made it this far, her fellow council members would approve its inception.

When the development was rejected, Gabelich said she was “totally surprised.”

“I think that everybody pretty much knew what they were going to do when they went in there,” Gabelich said of Tuesday’s vote. “I really wasn’t expecting that. I just really wasn’t.”

Gabelich, along with council members Gary DeLong and Robert Garcia, voted in favor of the project.

Council members Gerrie Schipske, Patrick O’Donnell, Dee Andrews and Steve Neal, along with vice mayor Suja Lowenthal, voted in opposition.

“The simple reason it didn’t go through is it was too tall and had too many negative impacts,” O’Donnell said. “I had concerns that I presented to the developer all along, but I walked into the meeting with an open mind.”

If the 2^nd + PCH project were to have gone through, it would have been in  violation of SEADIP, the Southeast Area Development and Improvement Plan.

SEADIP reads, “the maximum height of buildings shall be 30 feet for residential and 35 feet for non-residential uses, unless otherwise provided herein.”

The proposed plans would have exceeded those limits and, according to O’Donnell, defeated the purpose of having created SEADIP.

However, council member Gary DeLong said that his frustration in the rejection of the proposal did not derive solely from its failure to be approved but from the council’s lack of negotiation.

“I didn’t really hear what their objections were,” DeLong said of the council members that voted no. “Perhaps their objections could have been overcome. I didn’t hear people trying to work towards a compromise.”

Mel Nutter, attorney for the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust, who is also former chairman and member of the California Coastal Commission, delivered a presentation in opposition of the 2^nd + PCH project at Tuesday’s meeting.

On Wednesday, Nutter said that at the base of his opposition were procedural issues.

“The Coastal Commission would undoubtedly, if the matter was before it, insist upon a review of the Local Coastal Program,” Nutter said. “In doing so, I thought it extremely likely that you would find the Coastal Commission denying the application to approve what the city was proposing.”

Local Coastal Programs are required for every community or area within designated coastal zones. They work in partnership with the Coastal Commission. LCP’s monitor future development of coastal resources, oversee the protection of coastal regions, and they outline measures in implementing project developments, such as zoning ordinances.

According to a two-page letter written by Nutter and presented to the council, the proposed plan is not in accordance with the city's current LCP.

“They have never, in my experience, simply approved a major plan amendment without making some requested modifications that would require a redesign of the project anyway,” Nutter said of the Coastal Commission.

Heather Altman, an outspoken critic of the 2nd + PCH development and a Belmont Shore resident, said Wednesday that she was surprised that the plan was not approved.

“It’s definitely not how I thought the votes were going to go,” Altman said. “I think that the majority of the council opted to comprehensively master plan. That’s exactly what numerous members of the opposition have been . I’m very pleased with the decision.”

“I think that for a long time, people were thinking there was just a very vocal minority and just environmentalists,” Altman added. “But if you listened to people speaking, the City of Seal Beach was opposed, the adjacent landowners were opposed, the Coastal Commission was opposed; it wasn’t the vocal minority people made it out to be.”

Gabelich, DeLong, and Malmuth, who said he has no plans to move forward in pursuit of the project, each struggled to suppress their frustration regarding Tuesday’s verdict.

“I think everyone should be disappointed that we ended up with nothing,” DeLong said. “I don’t think that was a good outcome for anyone.”

Gabelich questioned the decision-making process of her fellow voters.

“I asked [the developers] for a number of things that I think could have gone under the community benefits title and I would hope that my colleagues would’ve done the same,” Gabelich said. “But they didn’t. To be so flippant, what’s really driving your vote?”

Apparently, what drove O'Donnell's vote was what he felt, an ill-advised creation.

“This was, in effect, a planned creation of a second downtown,” O’Donnell said. “And the whole reason SEADIP was created was so that we don’t get a second downtown.”