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Officials present updated Comprehensive Plan at city council meeting
In an effort to rebuild a more sustainable Long Beach, the city’s Department of Economic Development continues to advance its Comprehensive Plan in accordance with feedback gathered at community input meetings last spring.
Director of Economic Development Patricia Bourne and planners from Sustainable Long Island and Cameron Engineering — two firms that have worked to develop the plan — presented an update at the Oct. 20 City Council meeting and discussed the initiative’s next steps.
The current Comprehensive Plan is building on the Master Plan put forward by the city in 2007. Though that initiative never got off the ground, Bourne said that a few major events since then have necessitated an updated version that will make for a more economically and environmentally sound Long Beach.
“We did this expansion of the plan based on the economic crash of 2008 and the devastation of Superstorm Sandy, of course, in 2012,” Bourne said. “What we’re looking to do is look at resiliency and what we need to go forward. Community input is very important in this whole process.”
Planners are also working to finalize and adopt a Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, which examines the relationship between the land and water of coastal regions. The entire city of Long Beach is within New York State’s coastal boundaries — as far as 1,000 feet inland. The creation of a Comprehensive Plan as well as a LWRP will allow the city to apply for additional grants and funding in the future by making it clear that the city has a well-thought-out vision of its future.
According to Janice Jijina, a planer with Cameron Engineering, the city is looking at economic development opportunities mainly along the bayfront, in the central business district and at the oceanfront. Some potential plans include more mixed-use buildings, increasing the amount of renewable energy alternatives in the city and possibly relocating some of the utilities along the bayfront to free up space and even reduce flooding.
Public input has been key to the plan’s development so far, Jijina said, and it will also focus on some of the quality of life issues residents have deemed most important.
