CITY OF PACIFICA
COUNCIL AGENDA SUMMARY REPORT
11/13/2023
1 SUBJECT:
Study session to hear an informational presentation and respond to questions regarding the California Coastal Commission staff’s March 8, 2023, suggested modifications to the City’s Draft Local Coastal Land Use Plan (LCLUP).
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Receive an informational presentation and respond to City Council questions regarding the California Coastal Commission staff’s March 8, 2023, suggested modifications to the City’s Certification Draft Local Coastal Land Use Plan (LCLUP) so the Council and the community clearly understand the CCC staff suggested modifications in advance of the next community meeting.
STAFF CONTACT:
Christian Murdock, AICP, Planning Director
(650) 738-7341
[email protected]
Stefanie Cervantes, AICP, Senior Planner
(650) 738-7341
[email protected]
BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION:
In February 2020, City Council approved the Certification Draft Local Coastal Land Use Plan (LCLUP), and directed the City Manager to Transmit the Certification Draft LCLUP to the California Coastal Commission (CCC) for certification. Additional background information including the Certification Draft LCLUP document are available on the Project Documents page of the Plan Pacifica website1.
The purpose of this study session is to take the first of several final steps to complete the CCC certification process for the previously Council-approved Certification Draft LCLUP. Importantly, the three-meeting process outlined in this report is intended to conclude the comprehensive LCLUP update process that started more than 10 years ago. It involves concluding the LCLUP update process based on the structure and policy emphasis approved by the City Council in the Certification Draft adopted in February 2020, with consideration of potential modifications to certain policies as an alternative to the CCC staff’s suggested modifications from March 2023.
This process is not a reconsideration of the structure and policy emphasis that was approved in the Certification Draft LCLUP. A more extensive revisiting of the underlying approach to the LCLUP, including additional technical analyses, is beyond the scope of the process currently underway. Any such more extensive process would be a significant workplan item, would require direction by a majority of the City Council, and would not allow the City to seek CCC certification of the LCLUP within the currently anticipated June 2024 timeline.
Staff submitted the Certification Draft LCLUP to the CCC in June 2020. Between the years of 2020-2022, City and CCC staffs exchanged several rounds of information in response to CCC staff requests. The information requested by CCC staff was required to address that agency’s 1 Available at https://www.planpacifica.org.
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administrative filing requirements before the City’s application could advance to a point where CCC staff could provide a substantive review of policy provisions. In August 2022, the CCC finally accepted the City’s Certification Draft LCLUP for filing. On December 16, 2022, the CCC took action to extend the deadline by one year, as authorized by Public Resources Code section 30517. The CCC’s action extended the deadline to December 22, 2023. Failure to act within the statutory deadline results in an LCP amendment being deemed approved by the CCC.
In late February 2023, the City received notice the CCC would consider the City’s Certification Draft LCLUP at the March 8, 2023, CCC meeting. The CCC staff report for the item included CCC staff’s final recommendation, which included many suggested modifications to the City’s submittal2. The City requested a continuance of the March 8th hearing date to allow an opportunity to review and consider the CCC staff’s recommendations. Since March, City staff has met multiple times with CCC staff to gain a better understanding of the suggested modifications in order to develop a comprehensive analysis and explore potential revisions for future City Council consideration.
On October 9, 2023, the City Council directed the City Manager to incorporate 2040 General Plan consistency revisions into the Certification Draft LCLUP to form the Revised Certification Draft LCLUP. City Council also adopted the Revised Certification Draft LCLUP, and approved the transmittal of the Revised Certification Draft LCLUP to the CCC for certification. This resubmittal of the Revised Certification Draft LCLUP will eliminate the December 22, 2023 deadline and allow the CCC additional time to conduct a hearing on the City’s revised application. Staff anticipates a CCC certification hearing on the revised application will occur no later than June 2024. The City Council on October 9 also directed a three-meeting community engagement plan, as follows:
• November 13, 2023 - Meeting #1: Inform the Council and community on CCC staff’s suggested modifications to the Certification Draft LCLUP from March 2023. • Tentatively scheduled early December 2023 - Meeting #2: Provide direction on potential alternative modifications to those presented by CCC staff based on discussions between City staff and CCC staff.
• Tentatively scheduled mid-late January 2024 - Meeting #3: City Council consideration and approval of a comment letter to the CCC requesting revisions to the CCC staff’s suggested modifications from March 2023
This three meeting process is intended to bring the Council and community to a point where a decision is made on whether to submit a comment letter to the CCC in response to CCC staff’s comments from March 2023. This is a necessary step to conclude the comprehensive LCLUP update process that was started in 2009 and most recently approved by City Council in February 2020 (with a revised LCLUP to incorporate conforming General Plan amendments approved in October 2023). Staff’s assessment is that the CCC staff’s suggested modifications from March 2023, if certified by the CCC, would likely not be adopted by the City Council as required by the Coastal Act in order to take effect. Therefore, eventual consideration of a comment letter to propose alternative modifications to the CCC that may be acceptable to the CCC and the City Council is the best and most expedient way for the City to seek CCC certification of an LCLUP amendment that the City Council is likely to adopt following CCC consideration.
Until a new LCLUP is certified by the CCC and adopted by City Council as revised, the City’s existing 1980 LCLUP will remain in effect. The 1980 LCLUP is no longer adequate to meet the 2 Available under Agenda Item No. 14.a for the meeting on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, at https://www.coastal.ca.gov/meetings/agenda/#/2023/3.
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City’s various needs for a modern, comprehensive land use plan for the Coastal Zone (roughly 15 percent of Pacifica’s land area). The 1980 LCLUP fails to prioritize coastal-dependent and coastal-related land uses and does not effectively address coastal erosion, sea level rise, and natural hazards. It is not consistent with the new 2040 General Plan and relying on it for future development will create conflicts that will present practical challenges for the City and permit applicants. For these reasons and others, certification of an updated LCLUP is in the City’s best interest and accomplishing certification will require consideration of potential alternatives to CCC staff’s suggested modifications.
California Coastal Commission Staff’s Suggested Modifications (March 2023) This initial meeting and report focus on the informational component and provide more detail regarding CCC staff’s suggested modifications to the City’s Certification Draft LCLUP. The suggested modifications in CCC staff’s March 8, 2023, staff report would change many components of the City’s June 2020 Certification Draft LCLUP (Attachment A). Some of the changes would be relatively minor, while others may be more impactful. Staff has prepared a summary table with all suggested modifications (Attachment B). Attachment B contains several columns with a variety of information to assist when reviewing the suggested modifications. The first three columns (Chapter, Page Number, and Modification Number) are used to locate the suggested modification in Attachment A. Please note that the Page Number is the page number as listed on the bottom of each sheet. The column labeled City’s Certification Draft provides the language as proposed by the City. The following column, CCC Suggested Modification, provides the text as proposed in CCC staff’s March 8th report (Attachment A). The last column, Brief Summary, provides staff’s assessment on what the suggested modification entails and why it is important that the City discuss it at the future community roundtable.
In staff’s assessment, many of the suggested modifications by CCC staff in Attachment B do not alter the City’s policy position and are minor in nature. For these types of suggested modifications, the City Manager recommends that they could be accepted by the City as proposed or with minor revisions. In Attachment B, these modifications include the following categories: Typo Correction, Clarification, Generalizes language, Coastal Act provision, Deletes text, New text, and Reorganization of Document. Other modifications have brief summaries of how the suggested modification would amend the text, and whether in staff’s assessment the suggested modification is minor and does not warrant further discussion. Other suggested modifications do alter the City’s vision for the future of the Coastal Zone in Pacifica and warrant further consideration by City Council. These CCC staff suggested modifications are indicated by the category “To be discussed” and are highlighted in green. As indicated above, this first community meeting is intended to inform and respond to any questions the Council may have about CCC staff’s suggested modifications.
Key Issues to Highlight
CCC staff’s suggested modifications include over 125 comments. More than half of the comments address provisions in Chapter 6: Coastal Resiliency. Other comment groupings address Glossary definitions and environmental protection policies. Some notable examples in the suggested modifications include (See Attachment B):
• Amendments to Chapter 4 policies include new categories of Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas (ESHA) and formalize the application of buffers around sensitive habitat, which would broaden applicability and reduce developable area of some properties (development is generally prohibited within ESHA or ESHA buffers). • Revision to the definition of Substantial Exterior Structural Modification in a manner that would include more types of routine property improvements, which would subject those Pacifica City Council 4
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projects to policies in Chapter 6, including relocation or removal of development under certain circumstances.
• Expansion of circumstances in which Chapter 6 policies apply, such as applicability to the Coastal Vulnerability Zones rather than only shoreline (i.e., oceanfront) development, which would broaden applicability to more private and public properties. • Application of Chapter 6 policies to routine development types described in Chapter 3, such as public infrastructure maintenance/replacement, trail system expansion, and roadway retrofits, which could require consideration of their relocation or removal. • Expansion of City responsibilities, including added costs, for evaluation of infrastructure relocation opportunities and shoreline monitoring.
Comments on Chapter 6: Coastal Resiliency are most significant in terms of their relationship to and impact on existing and future development in Pacifica. As listed above, suggested modifications will impact a broader number of properties and include additional project types than previously intended in the Certification Draft LCLUP. These suggested modifications will have direct impacts to the City, private property owners, and residents. Suggested modifications would specifically affect the City’s existing and potential future shoreline protection structures, which protect critical public infrastructure including roads and utilities, provide lateral access (i.e., public trails) to the coast including for persons with disabilities, protect public access and parking areas, protect important visitor-serving and tax generating commercial businesses, and finally, protect existing residential areas including single- and multi-family residential housing.
Maintenance of existing shoreline protection structures is crucial to protect existing neighborhoods from coastal erosion and other coastal hazards. Additionally, implementation of suggested modifications related to existing structures would require property owners to take on additional, unanticipated costs triggered by otherwise typical projects such as additions on properties throughout the City, which could lead to disinvestment in these properties. Reduced investment in turn could lead to deteriorated housing and blighted conditions in some of Pacifica’s most visible and frequently visited neighborhoods.
While staff does not believe the City Council would adopt the LCLUP as modified by CCC staff’s suggested modifications, staff does believe additional modifications could be approved by the CCC. Following this informational first meeting, staff will continue preparations for the next meeting which will provide an opportunity for Council to listen to community discussions of potential alternative modifications in a small-group roundtable format (Meeting #2). Finally, Council will consider sending a comment letter to CCC to propose alternative modifications (Meeting #3).
While staff does not believe the City Council would adopt the LCLUP as modified by CCC staff’s suggested modifications, staff does believe additional modifications could be approved by the CCC if proposed by the City sufficiently in advance of the future LCLUP certification hearing. In order to address CCC staff’s suggested modifications, the City will prepare a comment letter to submit to the CCC as part of their consideration of the Revised Certification Draft LCLUP, when it is anticipated to be considered in June, 2024. The comment letter will be the subject of Meeting #3. It is staff’s assessment that it is important for the Council to consider submitting such a comment letter. Adoption of an updated LCLUP will have many benefits for the City, including among them:
• Updated maps and other information to inform decision making. • Enhanced environmental protections to benefit coastal resources. • Enhanced economic development and more housing, including affordable housing, based on updated land use designations.
• Aligned policies between the Coastal Zone and 2040 General Plan.
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In the absence of an LCLUP certified by the CCC and adopted by the City Council, the 1980 LCLUP will remain in effect for the foreseeable future. Staff estimates that any significant deviation from the process currently underway to finalize the 2020 Certification Draft LCLUP (with 2040 General Plan edits for consistency) would require multiple years before another opportunity to achieve CCC certification of a different comprehensive LCLUP update would be available.
Future Community Engagement Meetings
As previously mentioned, this study session is the first of three community engagement meetings. The next meeting, Meeting #2, will be a community roundtable discussion tentatively scheduled for early December 2023. The purpose of the second meeting will be to allow the public an opportunity to discuss potential alternative modifications to those presented by CCC staff. City staff has secured a professional facilitation service to allow for small-group conversations that will allow a comprehensive and detailed discussion that takes into account all viewpoints.
Meeting #3 will be a City Council consideration item to discuss submission of a comment letter from the City to the CCC requesting revisions to the CCC staff's March 2023 suggested modifications. The meeting is tentatively scheduled for mid- to late-January 2024 following input from both the community and Council received in Meeting #2.
All meetings will be advertised via social media and the Plan Pacifica email list. Staff anticipates that materials to be discussed at both Meetings #2 & #3 will be published a week prior to the meeting dates.
ALTERNATIVE ACTION:
This is a study session and staff is requesting input from the City Council.
RELATION TO CITY COUNCIL GOALS AND WORK PLAN:
The Local Coastal Land Use Plan is consistent with the following item(s) in the Council-adopted Strategic Plan and Priority Work Plan for FY 2023-24:
• Goal 4: Pursue climate change adaptation and mitigation. o Strategy C: Update Pacifica’s Local Coastal Plan and improve communications and collaboration with the California Coastal Commission.
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no direct fiscal impact from the study session.
ORIGINATED BY:
Planning Department
ATTACHMENT LIST:
Attachment A - California Coastal Commission Suggested Modifications Exhibit (PDF) Attachment B - Summary Table With All Suggested Modifications (DOCX)