The Civic Center Specific Plan was presented to the City Council in 1998, but was neither approved nor rejected. Mayor Sharon Barovsky said the document has become obsolete.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
While being presented on Monday with an update on the status of city projects, Planning Commissioner Regan Schaar asked if the Civic Center Specific Plan could be resurrected for city officials to review.
The document, which established a vision plan for development of the Civic Center, was drafted over an 18-month period in the 1990s. It was brought before the City Council in 1998 and no vote was taken. No attempt to vote on the plan has ever been made. Schaar said a specific plan would be a good idea “just to get the ball rolling so that maybe there’s a plan.”
Commissioner Pete Anthony pointed to the fact that the city’s General Plan requires a Civic Center Specific Plan. “To not have one means the city is violating the General Plan,” he said.
The commission instructed Senior Planner Stacey Rice to review what occurred at the 1998 City Council meeting when the plan was presented and to report back to the commission. The commission could recommend the City Council address the document.
After being informed about Monday’s discussion, Mayor Sharon Barovsky, who was a member of the committee that drafted the specific plan, said on Tuesday that resurrecting the document would not be useful. She said it has become obsolete.
“At that time we envisioned the landowners in the Civic Center moving forward with projects,” Barovsky said. “Today our vision is to have no development on [the] Chili Cook-Off [site], [have] two acres donated from the Wave property for our clean water program and other properties possibly purchased by the city.”
The specific plan project was launched in September 1995 when the original contract with consultants was signed. Several workshops, study groups and meetings later took place, including the 18 months worth of meetings of the Specific Plan Subcommittee.
Barovsky said, although the plan never became an official city document, it was not totally useless because many of the studies done for it have been used for other city research.
Also at Monday’s meeting, the commission approved a coastal development permit for the San Nicholas Canyon Chumash Discovery Center near Nicholas Canyon County Beach. The project, which includes the restoration of San Nicholas Canyon Creek through the removal of nonnative vegetation and the planting of native vegetation, calls for the construction of 12 portable houses measuring up to 25 feet across and 10 feet high, a pit fire, a shade porch, fish drying racks, mortar stones, a demonstration cemetery, a 10-foot-by-30-foot trailer and a portable toilet.
The project was not passed without controversy, with a resident living near the proposed site stating several concerns about noise and other issues. After a lengthy discussion, the commission shifted the location of the development further from the residence and said it would readdress the issue six months later to determine whether noise was a problem.
The Wishtoyo Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to preserve Chumash culture, will run the site, which will be used for ceremonies for celebrations and youth field trips.
Additionally, at the meeting, Deputy City Engineer Claudio Sanchez announced that the Zumirez Drive realignment project would be completed by the end of June. The project, which is being worked on now, calls for the shifting of the south end of the Point Dume road 100 feet to the east so that it is aligned with the north end, located on the opposite side of Pacific Coast Highway. A traffic signal is also being placed at the intersection.