Creating the Vision and Way Forward for Hermosa Beach -

Description

Join the Hermosa community on 11/6 at 6:00 pm, Clark Building, to create the vision and guiding principles for the future of Hermosa Beach in the context of the General Plan/Coastal Land Use Plan rewrite focused on sustainability, community and economy.

Help prioritize opportunities and policy options, and start to identify the physical changes needed to achieve the community's vision for a sustainable Hermosa Beach.

Find out more here. Contact Pamela Townsend, Community Development Department, at (310) 318-0242 or ptownsend@hermosabch.org.

5 Reasons to Get Involved

1. The Hermosa I want. Would you like to keep Hermosa a small eclectic beach town — where you can connect with places and faces in a healthy, safe, relaxing environment that still affords plenty to do? It takes a plan and effort to keep or improve upon what Hermosa has. The new Plan will address the challenges of today and tomorrow, and provide the overarching “compass” and “road map” for the City’s future growth and development.

2. My property is a major asset. Do you care about property rights and values? What is right combination of regulations versus incentives? The new Plan will chart a course for the City’s future, and look at how public and private property relates to, and can contribute to the achievement of, community goals. Since the Plan will be adopted and implemented by the City Council, it will place more attention on issues and solutions that City Hall has some control over. Zoning, land use, development, building and other regulations are important tools that can be used to effect change over time. Some zoning and other regulatory changes will be called for as a result of the revised Plan.

3. Waste not, want not. Do you care about using resources efficiently and effectively? The Plan will “connect the dots” of many individual efforts, innovators, organizations and partners, and align them to achieve the community goals set forth in the Plan. By figuring out what Hermosa aspires to be as a community, we can then identify and align people, financial, economic and environmental resources. The General Plan will identify how the City should allocate its resources. The City also will be better positioned to get grants and funding if the proposed program or improvement is addressed in the General Plan.

4. Problems need to be solved. How will the Plan solve our everyday problems? Parking, resident versus visitor balance, problems in the downtown, changing community character, hard to get around, sewers need to be replaced, etc. While it is tempting to immediately focus on solutions, we should first look at the city as a system. What does the desired future look like: economic, social, environmental, built-environment goals? Then, how can we “right size” parking, visitors, the downtown, the built-environment, and so on, to achieve community goals.

5. The opportunity. While required by state law, the General Plan rewrite provides a rare opportunity to (a) tackle big, long-term, emerging as well as everyday issues, (b) allow the community to take charge and get on the same page about its goals and courses of action, (c) be more effective and get funding, and (d) avoid/reduce success of legal challenges relating to the general plan. A certified Local Coastal Program will also be an outcome of the process: the City will assume local control and issue coastal development permits in most cases, which will avoid the time and uncertainty of the Coastal Commission process.


www.HermosaBch.org