After watching the Planning Commission go at it last night, I have two takeaways.

First, the ongoing discussions about revisions to the cannabis ordinance at the City Council, even though a draft ordinance hasn’t even received its first reading, are absolutely going to impact the Planning Commission’s discussions regarding existing applications. Both Commissioner Angely Andrade Vallarta and Commissioner Jimmy Vivar — whether they recognized it or not — tried to read in both the recommended residential buffer and the cap on cannabis business permits discussed at the City Council into the present regulations, the former through light impacts and the latter through the City’s cannabis consultant’s estimate of the supportable number of cannabis businesses in a city the size of Costa Mesa. As a result the applicant squeaked through on a 3-2 vote (Commissioners Jon Zich and Karen Klepack were absent), with Commissioners Andrade Vallarta and Vivar both voting no.

And second: as I and others watching this process carefully have suspected, it’s pretty clear at this point that the public outreach process for the Fairview Developmental Center has been mostly for show. Sure, Staff and the consultant, PlaceWorks, have been gamely going through the motions. But at the end of the day, hard limitations, such as utility lines and economic feasibility, will determine not only how many units will be built, but what they will look like and what amenities are built to serve them.

Let’s zoom in on a exchange between Vice Chair Russell Toler and PlaceWorks consultant Karen Gulley, which I view as the most pivotal part of the meeting. I’ve embedded the discussion below. The first question Vice Chair Toler asks is whether the existing infrastructure will support the 2,300+ units that we plan for the site, and Ms. Gulley forthwrightly answered no, it will not, and therefore basic infrastructure (sewer, water, electrical lines, etc.) will need to be redone from scratch. Vice Chair Toler then followed up to ask how many units the new infrastructure will support — which really is the question that needs to be answered before we get into any kind of “visioning process.” Ms. Gulley’s answer? “We haven’t really tested how much we can fit in there, from an infrastructure perspective. But we will.”

What? Why are we asking people what the FDC should look like from a density or open space perspective if we don’t even know how much infrastructure the area can support?

Ah but it gets worse. Keep listening on from that exchange and you’ll come to another eye-opening statement, beginning around the 3:27:30 mark. Continuing his questioning, Vice Chair Toler asks, “can you think of some things that can end up in a specific plan like this that [from a feasibility perspective, could make this plan] “unimplementable”?” The consultant answered: “As someone who has written a lot of specific plans and reviewed a lot of specific plans, I think common barriers would be to be too prescriptive in terms of design requirements, in terms of building type, and other things like that… our recommendation is really to kind of provide this flexible framework to allow for it to evolve over time.“

To provide a flexible framework to allow for it to evolve over time. Let that sink in. So all those hours spent putting colored sticker dots on different kinds of housing types people would want to see in this area? Well, that’s nice, but we need to be flexible. Desires for lots of open space, field space, community gardens, etc.? Also great ideas, but again, flexibility is key. What about walking paths, bicycle paths, and other mobility amenities? Right there with you, but you know, if it doesn’t pencil, *shrug* we gotta be flexible.

So you can see why residents — including myself — are frustrated with the approach to this project. The only questions the consultant has been asking the public about either (1) will be determined by material constraints such as infrastructure, which either no one knows yet or haven’t been disclosed, or (2) are precisely the matters which a developer will ultimately want to control so that it can make the development buildable and, yes, profitable. Basically: your comments have been received and filed by your administrators. Now sit tight while we hammer out the real plan.

The other newsy bit from the evening is that there seems to be growing enthusiasm on the dais for a potential land swap between the city and the state to re-arrange the developable area. Vice Chair Toler floated the idea of swapping some of the FDC site with (presumably) part of the Costa Mesa Golf Course that runs along Harbor Boulevard, which would eliminate the FDC’s structure as an isolated cul-de-sac and permit it to be stitched together with the rest of the city. While I know the golf enthusiasts in the city might cringe at this suggestion, I actually think that plan is in the best interest of the golf course in the long run. If the FDC site is actually developed and contains thousands of residential units, the pressure on the golf course to permit all kinds of disruptive ingresses and egresses to the site will be immense. Politically speaking this could spell the end of the golf course entirely. So a bid now to unite the course into a more cohesive plot might be its best chance to survive in an urbanizing area in the longer run. The Vice Chair’s suggestion was echoed by other Planning Commissioners, including Chair Adam Ereth, so we’ll see if we hear more about that in the future.

The other idea that got effectively deep-sixed was the formation of a resident committee. Not only did Chair Ereth shoot that down — remarking “I couldn’t think of anything more redundant,” which will be interpreted as a slap to the face of the ideas proponents — the consultants also counseled that forming such a committee at this point would materially hinder the process and disrupt the aggressive timeline set by the state. And frankly, if speed of execution trumps all other considerations, they are probably right. But it’s a bitter pill to swallow when this idea was floated many months ago and city officials effectively ran out the clock on it.

But despite all these issues the FDC process seems to keep plodding forward, impervious to either basic uncertainties about the project scope and area or any process objections from the public. Stay tuned.