Speaker 0: Great motion case. Moving on to hearing item number two.
Speaker 2: Report from Development Services recommendation received supporting documentation under the record. Conclude the public hearing and adopt a negative declaration. 03-19 Declare Ordinance Amending Title 21 of the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to the drive thru facilities. Read for the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading and adopt a resolution directing the Director of Development Services to submit the ordinance amendments to the California Coastal Commission citywide.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We turn this over to staff for the full report. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, if we can get the clicker for the slides to be able to advance the presentation from the clerk or from the tie in the back. And the staff report will be given by Linda Tatum, director of development services, as well as Christopher Coons, our planning bureau manager.
Speaker 6: I'd like to turn this presentation over to our planning manager, Christopher Koontz, and the planning team that also includes our advanced planning officer, Patricia Defender for.
Speaker 7: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, and members of the Council. We are back with the proposed permanent regulations for how the city will regulate drive thru facilities. As a reminder, this effort began in July of 2018 and that it went through the typical planning process. It did have a non typical step. We were in front of you in April of this year for a moratorium request. You asked us to work expeditiously and we are here two months ahead of schedule. Back to present our final regulations to you this evening. Existing regulations in terms of drive thru facilities in the city are uneven. Restaurants in commercial zones are subject to a copy process, whereas banks and other facilities are subject to AUP process in certain industrial areas. Drive thru facilities are able to go in as a matter of right, but in other locations, not if they're within 300 feet of residential district. The action in front of you tonight cleans up that inconsistency and provides what we feel are contemporary and appropriate regulations for all such facilities throughout all of the city. The map on the left gives you an idea of under the status quo regulations where drive thru facilities are allowed in both red and gray and on the right gives you an idea of where our existing drive thru facilities are. On the right is important because when we talk about new regulations, those are going to apply largely to new facilities. So those in excess of 100 existing facilities will be able to continue to operate in their current locations. As I mentioned, there are 116 and fast food drive thru facilities throughout the city. They're in every district and every part of the city. This effort was initiated due to an increase in the number of applications for additional new drive thru facilities. While such facilities provide convenience to the consumer. They also have impacts in terms of pedestrian safety, traffic and queuing night, the noise and pollution. And with our mobility element as well as our most recent land use element, there's a concern that this style of development is inconsistent with our goals and policies for the city. So diving into that a little bit further, our current regulations do not. They're over 20 years old. They do not align with the best practices in the city's policy documents in terms of addressing quality of life, sustainability and design drive through as they go in and pedestrian oriented areas or mixed use areas. It cannot only create hazards and collisions between pedestrians and motorists, but may also inhibit the city's housing and economic goals over time. The land use element and urban design element encourages mixed use corridors to accommodate housing and mixed use rather than single use drive thru facilities. This slide just gives you an overview of there are positive impacts associated with these facilities, including convenience and speed, as well as while we do not is not within our regulations. Many of these provide lower cost, affordable options to consumers. There are also the negative impacts that we've talked about in terms of air quality, safety, noise and opportunity cost for what could have otherwise gone in on that site. So what do we do through the process over the last year? We've come up with proposed regulations that better define all drive thru facilities and require a conditional use permit in all locations throughout the city. The process by which planning staff and the Planning Commission make a decision on any given application is through what are called findings. This action will change the findings required to approve a drive thru facility and those findings will better address negative impacts and reference the design of the facility today under the status quo. Our findings only regulate the length of the queue for the cars and the location and orientation of the menu board. So these are the proposed findings in front of you without reading through all of them. I just want to be clear that there is a focus on design. So even in those locations where a drive thru facility might be appropriate, such as adjacent to the freeway or on a site that can't support another use, this will allow us to achieve a higher level of design and safety for the public, including the patrons of these facilities. These new findings will require consideration of tradeoffs and will allow staff and the Planning Commission ultimately to provide a more nuanced side by side analysis and allow these facilities where they're appropriate and guide them to locations such as shopping centers and freeway adjacent sites. One of the findings that is part of this regulation is a departure from how we typically regulate land use because it will look at what we call opportunity cost. So this just shows you on a site that is 30,000 square feet, you might get on the upper end, a 4000 square foot drive through a facility with about 25 parking stalls. That's a floor area ratio of 0.13 or sort of a low usage of the land. And we would compare that not to the land being vacant, but to what else could be placed on that site. So in this case, a three storey townhome project would yield about 30 housing units with some ground floor retail. So in that case, the findings would suggest that is not an appropriate location for the drive thru facility. This map on the left shows again, we saw this earlier. All of the locations in gray and red where drive thru facilities are permitted today, applicants will be allowed to apply in all of those locations going forward. But when we look at the findings on the right, it just gives you a preview of those locations that staff thinks are most likely to support additional drive thru facilities. And those are those locations where it's a more automobile oriented location or other uses are not permitted or it's in a shopping center or a freeway adjacent. So with that, we've worked expeditiously, but really tried to take into account the impact that this counsel provided a couple months back. We've brought two regulations that do not prohibit drive thru facilities but provide a much more effective and focused permitting process to get the design of those facilities and location of them correct. We would ask you to adopt the ordinance that has been prepared by the city attorney and to forward this item to the California Coastal Commission for their certification within the coastal zone. If this code amendment is adopted tonight and then goes on to second reading, it would end the existing moratorium, most likely 30 days after the second reading. And for those applications that were already in process, which were attached to the minute order when you did the moratorium. Those would be processed under the old rules because those were the rules that existed on the day that they filed their application. So with that, we would be glad to take any questions that you may have.
Speaker 0: Thank you. There's emotion and a second concern for Pierce.
Speaker 4: I want to say how much I appreciate you guys doing a quick turnaround on this. I know that it's been in the works for a long time. I fully support I'm going to vote yes tonight. I look forward to hearing if community has any comments and look forward to hearing my my colleague's comments. I did have a question sort of related to this. If we're denying projects because there's a higher and better use, which I support, and how long like, say, that property stays vacant for three years, that we don't have a developer that comes on that. Is there a time limit that we're assessing for that? I just know we have a lot of vacant spots in my district.
Speaker 7: So thank you for the question. Council Member So there is not a time limit baked into the ordinance, but staff through practice would look at in an economic cycle. So in a five year period and when we talk about opportunity cost, it's not just could something else theoretically go there. It's when you look at market conditions, when you look at the physicality of the site and what is there a viable alternative use, not just is there, you know, sort of someone has an idea. So we would put all of that into the soup and take a look. And I think, you know, we're looking at the narrow issue of the drive through facilities this evening, but there's a number of issues with the vacant lots in your district, and we'd be glad to have a separate conversation.
Speaker 4: About and I know I believe Councilmember Austin had done an item around vacant lot, so I look forward to getting that item back because it's definitely an issue that we want to talk about. I think this is great. You know, I'm a single mom and so drive thrus are something that unfortunately I use from time to time. But knowing the health impacts, not only of the space that they use, the environmental damage that's done, but also often the food is a challenge. One other question. When we talked last time, we also talked about bikes and pedestrian access to two drive thrus. And I know you referenced where that where they're located throughout the city, but is there any other design implementation around bike accessibility or pedestrian windows? Good afternoon. Councilmember is Patricia Defender for yes. The design guidelines which will be coming to you at a later time, they'll be going to the Planning Commission and we can give you a presentation on those. Those will require a number of different site planning measures and the contemplation of walkup windows and other outdoor dining and facilities that would serve pedestrians are part of the design, would be part of the design guidelines, and we'll be looking for those things in future developments. Thank you, guys. Job well done. I look forward to the vote.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I, I you know, I got to tell you, this was a really quick turnaround, and it seems like you've done what the council had asked you to do. There's one area on page nine that I'd like just a little bit more clarity on. I know one of the significant issues was that some of these uses are over concentrated in certain areas, in certain communities within Long Beach. I see bullet number seven says that that will now be a factor, you know, a finding as we consider drive thru. So how is that actually going to happen? I see it as it's not located in an area of existing overconcentration and not located within a 500 foot radius of the school or park. And I know as relates to liquor stores and things like that, typically if there's, you know, there's a guideline that says that there are more than this many licenses, then it's subject to be protested. How would this process work for drive thrus or would it be similar?
Speaker 7: Thank you for the question, Councilman Richardson. So it would be similar, but it would be a departure. One of the issues we have in the alcohol regulation as we look at the census track, so that presents problems because you may have a liquor store across the street that's in a different census track, but it's not captured. So what would we what we would be doing is asking the applicant on any one of these applications to show on a radius map how many existing drive thru facilities are within 500 feet and 1000 feet of the facility. And looking at that close proximity and it will require some nuance because those facilities that are, for example, within a shopping center or a place like the town center in Councilmember Mungo's district, you know, don't contribute to overconcentration in the same way that freestanding facilities that break up the rhythm of the street do. So all of that will have to be analyzed. They'll be guidance provided in the application forms from that department, but that doesn't go into the text of the ordinance.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And I'd like to just follow that. I think you're right. It's treated differently in certain certain communities because they're designed differently. And, you know, you know, a drive thru in a large town center is not going to have the same impact as a drive thru, you know, on a main and main corridor, let's say, in North Long Beach. So I'd like to follow that. And the last thing I'll say is that I think this is certainly a step in the right direction. We know that there's certainly a need for other business types, grocery stores, neighborhood serving markets, pharmacies and in typically in banks. And the the drive thru has been a tool for us to be able to get a bank, our first bank in our district. We needed to put the drive through ATM in order to get the bank. But there's no need really for drive thru restaurants. There's plenty of drive thru restaurants. So as long as we maintain that flexibility to say as an economic development tool to bring a pharmacy to your community, yes, your pharmacy can have a drive thru or as an economic development tool to bring a bank into your community. Your bank can have a drive thru ATM, but it would be treated differently with a drive thru restaurant. And as I understand it, you know, what we're doing here doesn't stop us from continuing to sort of differentiate between the two. Correct?
Speaker 7: That's correct. It's that's exactly what's in front of you.
Speaker 1: Great. Then I support this. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Let me go to a public comment and we'll go back to the council. Is your public comment on this item? Okay. I'm going to close the speakers list. I've got two items, two members for public comment and I'm close to two speakers. So I have four and that's it. I'm closing the speakers. Please come forward.
Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Good evening, Mayor. Members of the city council. It's a pleasure to be here this evening. My name is Steve Gerhart and the executive director of Walk Long Beach. We, too, would like to thank staff for the expeditious effort to bring this item forward and generally were very pleased with what has been put into the regulations. As was stated in the staff report, we're focusing on design. One very important piece that's missing is the design guidelines. So one of our requests would be that the moratorium be in place until the design guidelines are available. We would want to lift up this comment that you had, Councilmember Pearce, about keeping the businesses open for walkers and pedestrians and people that just live nearby and don't need to drive. Finding number six, serving locals who choose to walk and bikes. We do have one small fix to the finding, a number eight. It currently states the general plan or economic blueprint. We think that should probably be an and or it could be in either of those two documents. We look forward to the implementation of this ordinance. And again, we think that the design guidelines, the devil's are in the details, and that's really what staff is going to be using to make sure that the walkup windows, their access from the street is there and that really this item is not fully cooked until those are available. So with that, thank you very much and we are very much in support of this item.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Hilda Guyton. I live in the ninth district. I would like to thank the city staff for the great work they did in the short period of time about the drive thru regulations. The drive thru report being presented to the City Council today has brought out information. I was not aware of a new racism concern. The regulations are good, but the amount of drive thrus in the 9805 area is almost double in comparison of the other zip codes in the city having equal regulation a modest amount about around the city in a scenario with big disparities, making it inequitable and discriminatory toward the 90 year area. It is important for the city to implement stronger regulation, to close the gap in the disparities and prevent nyayo free from increasing the amount of drive thrus over the past year. I and the Latino members, along with other Long Beach community members, has been working with the city through the U. I plan a plan I never thought how would you pronounce it? Through the plan to change this zoning for the Atlantic and Artesia corridors. Even though the draft documents call for a long drive through zoning along the corridors, they are many more corridors and areas where these developments can pop up and continue affecting the environment and the public health of Long Beach residents. My group and I are looking forward to keep working with the city and our plan on changing the zoning for the 98 of my area. But in the meantime, I sincerely request the Council to extend the drive thru moratorium for the 95 zip code and to new regulation that addresses the inequalities in the amount of drive thru between the 98 of Frye and the rest of the city. And the new plan recommendations are in place. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Next speaker.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, Mayor. City Council. My name is Kirk Davis. I archaic as I know they spelled it wrong last time. I live in the ninth district and I've been on top of this issue pretty much from the beginning. I'm very thankful for city staff, for the work they've done in a short period of time, and it's nice that they were able to show the inequity between the 905 area code and the other 12 area zip codes in in Long Beach, showing that we have 26 drive thrus, over 115 that were listed in the report. I was hoping that the moratorium would stay on the drive thru until the general plan comes into effect and until the YOU plan recommendations come into effect, because that's going to really affect how the things come up. It also brought up in the report how there was an increase in the amount of drive thrus applied for. And I think that it is in direct relation to the fact that there's going to be a new general plan. So if the moratorium can be extended for the whole city, I would please ask that the moratorium can be extended to the April five area code until the general plan is passed and until all the up plan recommendations are put into force. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And our last speaker.
Speaker 8: Good evening, Mayor and city council. My name is Ailsa Chang with Long Beach Forward. We'd like to thank the mayor, the council and especially the staff for bringing these regulations forward so quickly. Long Beach Forward was a part of the Advocate Coalition to request a moratorium on the drive thrus. And again, thank you all so much for acting on that moratorium so quickly. Our primary goal for this item and for the city as a whole is healthy, equitable land use. To this end, and as my colleagues Hilda and Kirk just mentioned, page two of the staff report is telling, the highest concentration of drive thrus is in the 90805 zip code in.
Speaker 4: North Long Beach.
Speaker 8: That's 22% of all drive thrus in the city. This is just one of many, many examples of disproportionately unhealthy and incompatible land uses in low income communities of color. So with that, we look forward to working closely with the mayor, the council and the city staff to.
Speaker 4: Strengthen the planning policies and processes, including through the land use element.
Speaker 8: And community driven zoning code updates. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. That concludes public comment on this hearing. Let me turn this back to the council and Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 8: So I really want to thank the development staff. I think you've done excellent work. I was I was in alignment with Councilmember Super and I in that there already is a process. And so I was not sure that we really needed the moratorium, but I'm glad that it came back so quickly. I think that the work you did is great. I think there's a couple of things that I see coming into the city and quite frankly, retail as a whole that need to be considered. More and more, the drive thrus are being faced with the inability to serve customers fast enough, and they're doing parking spots and drive up delivery. And I think we really need to talk about that. I can give you a couple of examples of locations where the drive up spot is actually not very conducive to the pedestrian walkways. It also means that once they pull into the mobile ordering parking spot, they then can't get out because the drive thru backs up past them and now they can't get in or out of these spots. And so I don't know what kind of process we could have to help them identify when they're taking a parking spot out of parking. What does that mean? Because when they were approved, they had a certain number of parking seats that was spaces that were required. And now they're taking four or five, sometimes even six parking spots. I'd also like to say that not all drive thrus are created equal. You take the town center, the number of seconds it takes, or the Chick fil A to serve a customer is almost a third of what it takes in an out to serve a customer. So now you have a concentration of drive thrus that are actually blocking each other because one business is far superior in its turn times . And so I don't know what kind of incentive programs we can have for getting cars through the line quicker so that we have less idling vehicles and less impact on the community because those are a major impacts. We also have major retailers that have no current drive thru component doing drive up and I think that we might need to look at some signage about turning off your engine. So Target, Wal-Mart, Vons, Ralphs, they're all doing drive up and pick up your groceries. All of those are coming into play in my district. We're getting the Wal-Mart drive up later this year. People often sit there idling their vehicles, and if we could come up with some universal signage that could be required as a part of the drive thru slash drive up regulation might be helpful if we see another phase of this come forward. I appreciate that. When this came for the first time, I wasn't as prepared for knowing and understanding the need. I appreciate the education, both from the city staff and from the community. I think that in talking with our businesses and our drive thru owners, that's given me the time to learn a little bit about the push through times and things like that. And so I would encourage you guys, if you're interested in meeting with some of those store managers and owners of franchises, that could be helpful as well. But I think that the starting point here is fantastic. I'm comfortable adopting this tonight. And then would it be possible to make it a friendly to come back with some of those drive up things, Councilwoman Pearce. It would just be at the direction of council that that would come back maybe even through a two from four if you thought another zoning change was necessary.
Speaker 7: City Council Member Thank you so much for the question. If if it's acceptable to the Council as part of this action, there are design guidelines that will come back to the Planning Commission, and we really rely on the Planning Commission to make those fine level details. And the issue that you discussed is an ongoing issue all over the city, even for places that have nothing to do with drive thru and that they are blocking off their parking for their sort of mobile order pick up. And it's. So that is an issue that that the department is trying to address. And we will be presenting those solutions to the Planning Commission. And I think our preference would be to provide you that information in a TFF rather than making a change, because these issues change over time. So it may be best not to memorialize it in that code, but rather in our operating regulations.
Speaker 8: I think that's fantastic. I think there's just one last thing, which is as the costs of owning and operating a business are changing and growing, one of the things that has recently been brought to my attention is that a restaurant will sublet itself out on non-peak hours or actually have a second like online only secret restaurant operating out of the same location. And so sometimes a business that has no mobile component of it may actually have one. And I don't know how through business licensing we can address that. But just something to bring on your radar.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we can talk with business license about that.
Speaker 8: Thank you. Great work.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Councilmember Supernova.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'd also like to start by commending staff for a great work, great report, working expeditiously. I think the original proposal was for a one year moratorium and that was cut in half to six months and then you've cut it in half again. So great job on that. I do have only one question for staff involving the report. And to answer you can be, I don't know, or zero or a whole number. How many drive thru mortuaries are there in Long Beach? Drive through mortuaries.
Speaker 6: What we do not have any here in the city of Long Beach, there is one in a neighboring community that we're aware of.
Speaker 1: Okay. So how many in the state of California?
Speaker 6: You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I said that was one option for an answer. So thank you.
Speaker 6: But we have we did a field trip to visit the drive through moratorium in a neighboring city. So we know it exists.
Speaker 1: Okay. But it is it will be at this passes tonight that will be part of our municipal code drive thru. Mortuaries are mentioned in this item. Yes. Okay. So I don't want to be too repetitive and what I said at the first meeting, but I stand on everything I said that night in April and that is I represent the fourth Council District. I realize the fourth Council District is very unique. We've had tremendous success under the current rules. We've had drive thrus and the right places. And I think Steve Gerhart would would agree with me that the traffic circle is not pedestrian friendly. And so that's where they went. We had a record number of them. And you talk about vacant lots and abandoned buildings. We had three abandoned buildings there. I see our former East division commander there. And that was a nightmare. And one abandoned building was abandoned for ten years, a bank building right next to Smart and Final and all that has been revitalized. We have three drive thrus in that area a bank, a pharmacy and a food restaurant. So based on the fact that the oh, and we've also in the fourth District, we stopped a drive thru from going in Del Taco. So based on the tremendous success we've had under the current rolls, I'm not going to vote for the recommendation. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to just chime in, so I heard a lot about 90805. You're absolutely right. There's some characteristics about 90805 that that really stand out. And so one that we should know is that it's the largest zip code in our city by a lot. So number one, if you think about our population per the last census and I only five is 93,000. Was it 93,524 people? That's a fifth of the city's population is generally a fifth of the city. Whereas if you think 90802 is 39,903 is 32,009 over the fourth 40,000. We're double the size of all zip codes and 905. A lot of people don't know that there are there's a need for a deep, deep look at 90805 in terms of planning and land use. And that's why over the last 3 to 4 years, we've really been focused on identifying the funding to create a plan, the uptown planning, land use and neighborhood strategy. So we've we've received funding both from Caltrans and from SCAD, and we're in the middle of the second phase of that project now. And that program essentially takes a deep dove planning lanes along North Long Beach that has never taken place before. Look at everything from liquor stores to drive thrus and all of these things. So now is the time for all that to happen. So I wanted to just acknowledge, you know, when we say it's a big number, we know that what are we doing about it? A plan is how we sort of figure out our rules of the road moving forward. And also we have to start treating 925 kind of like a town. It's a fifth of city's population the size of every city, if not larger than every surrounding city that we have. Right. The size of Compton, Carson, larger than, you know, Paramount, Bellflower, Lakewood. And it's one zip code within our city. And so we have to put more attention on these issues in our community. So I wanted to just lift that up because I saw it came up a few times in public comment. Yes. The drive thrus and liquor stores and all these other other things are a problem, but also the lack of the things that we have, which is why we need to address it from a planning level standpoint. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much. And Councilman Pearce.
Speaker 4: Yes. I just wanted I maybe I didn't write it down, but the timeline for planning and next steps, I want to make sure we know what that is and that we're trying to move quickly on that. And yeah. So Patricia defender for the the ordinance would be adopted if if it's approved today it would be adopted it would be effective about 31 days after the action of the council. The design guidelines will follow very shortly on the heels of this. And as I mentioned, I think I misspoke a little bit, but it will be going to planning commission because their guidelines are not code. So we could find a way to update the council when that is released. But I would just wonder, do you guys have a date for that? Yeah, I think in the next couple of months we will I mean, have that done and to the planning commission. Okay. So this is my my urging us to get that done sooner rather than later. Yeah. I mean we have drafts now that are in review. It could be sooner than that. But just two months possibly just doesn't anyone do this. Okay. Okay. Thank you. But it's good to know that this would go into effect 21 days after after the vote today, 31 days. 31 days. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Appreciate. After the second reading.
Speaker 0: Yes, it had to be at once. A second reading is over. Okay. There's a motion and a second roll call vote. Uh, District two. Three. District for.
Speaker 1: NE.
Speaker 0: District five. District six. Yes. Seven by eight and nine motion carries. Moving on to hearing at number three, Madam Clerk.
Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Sections 21.15.870; Table 32-1 of Chapter 21.32, Table 33-2 of Chapter 21.33, and Section 21.45.130; and by adding Section 21.15.875, all relating to drive-through facilities, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)