We’ve got the first City Council agenda of the new year, and it doesn’t look like the City Manager is going to ease the Council’s new members into their roles.

First, we’ve got a closed session agenda that has references to at least two sober living home cases, including the now famous Ohio House case. Again, how these cases ultimately are resolved in light of the Ninth Circuit’s ruling is a bit less interesting than how (and whether) the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) revises its stance on sober living homes, as this issue has the potential to continue to hold up full certification of our Housing Element. So stay tuned for more updates in this space.

What’s the prize for winning the plan making contest? More plans!

Next, the City Council must consider not one, but two proposals for even more master plans, this time a Facilities Master Plan proposed in the consent calendar and a Safe Routes to School Master Plan up for consideration as new business item #1.

If you’re experiencing plan burn-out, you aren’t alone. These plans are in addition to the City’s General Plan and its multitude of elements, as well as the specific plans that are intended to guide the development of limited areas of the city. And these add-on plans are very common, too; just in the last six or seven years, we’ve seen the City Council pass or revise the following plans:

• Active Transportation Plan
• Pedestrian Master Plan
• Open Space Master Plan
• Storm Drain Master Plan Update
• Arts & Culture Master Plan

Plus, the following plans are in the works:

• Fairview Park Master Plan Update
• Fairview Developmental Center Master Plan
• Economic Development Strategic Plan
• Climate Action and Adaptation Plan

…And I’ve probably missed a few. So to this panoply of plans, the Council is now being asked to add a Facilities Master Plan and a Safe Routes to School Plan. Why?

Part of the answer we’ve been through before with the Pedestrian Master Plan and the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. The State has decided to put the money it wants to give back to municipalities behind bureaucratic gatekeepers, and the best way to get past them is to write grants that speak to the State’s policy priorities. This is best done leveraging a “plan” that can bolster the argument that any particular project is in service to some larger State goal (walkability, climate adaptation, environmental protection, etc.). The money you spend for the plans is simply part of the cost of doing business.

But is it business the City should be doing? The answer is almost certainly yes, but the price tags are starting to become somewhat ludicrous. For example, the Facilities Master Plan will cost the city about $330,000 (including contingency) and the work product will be “a thorough evaluation of each city’s facility,” a utilization analysis, a survey of future space and staffing needs (a survey of whom? The public? The Staff?), and cost estimates, funding strategies and prioritization of future projects.

Um, wouldn’t City Staff itself be best positioned to complete most of this work? Why is it efficient to use an outside consultant to do deep dive evaluations of how we use our own city facilities? Shouldn’t we be building the internal capacity to do this? It seems counterproductive and very expensive to pay an outside consultant $330k to simply write down the condition of our existing public facilities, when our Staff literally use them every day.

Additionally, while I’m sure a Facilities Master Plan is a good idea for future planning, I don’t think it can boast the same “flywheel” logic of, say, something like the Active Transportation Plan where spending the money on the plan generates outsized grant awards in the future. I would think the State and the Feds wouldn’t be so eager to dole out grant funds to revamp public buildings, since that’s pretty squarely within the City’s responsibilities. So I’m not sure I get the approach the city is taking here.

The Safe Routes to School Action Plan is also eye-wateringly expensive, clocking in at a whopping $788,090. The good news is that more than 3/4ths of the cost is covered by a federal “Safe Streets and Roads for All” grant, courtesy of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal (one of the bigger legislative “accomplishments” of the Biden Administration). The bad news is that the grant is narrowly tailored to cover only planning, so none of that money can be more usefully directed towards, say, actually making our routes to school safer. Which is a shame: we really, really need to get serious about making it safer to walk and bicycle around our schools, and we need to do that right now. The economic pressures that will cause more and more kids to skip the bus (which you have to pay for) or the ride from mom or dad (who might have to work early shifts) will also push them to walk or bicycle to school more often. And those pressures are unrelenting.

Once again, the city is placed in the unpalatable position of being offered money to write a bunch of very expensive words about the changes it wants to make, rather than being offered money to actually make them. But unlike the Facilities Master Plan, I think the SRTS Plan is will pay big grant dividends. No matter the political winds the State will always have an interest in making sure kids get to school safely. So from a cold accounting perspective, the SRTS Plan makes sense, especially when the city is only putting up about $175k of the funds.

Another headache: Harper leaves the the Westend patio expansion in the City Council’s lap

As if plan hell wasn’t bad enough, the City Council will also need to re-review the proposed patio expansion by Westend, a restaurant on W. 19th Street, courtesy of an appeal of the Planning Commission’s approval of the same last year by former Council Member Don Harper. In a testament to the brisk pace of government, Harper made his appeal back in October; and since then, factoring in holiday time and the election, the matter simply didn’t get agendized for almost three months. I’m sure the applicant was cool with the delay.

This one is pretty complicated; essentially, the Westend proprietor, Roland Barrera, is trying to combine the effect of two laws — AB 2097, a State law that exempts businesses within 0.5 miles of a major transit stop from local parking requirements, and the Costa Mesa Outdoor Dining Ordinance, which allows restaurants to construct outdoor patio space without those tables requiring additional parking — to permit it construct an outdoor patio that will remove two of only three onsite parking spots. Staff and the Planning Commission both approved the plan, albeit somewhat unenthusiastically.*

Now, Harper’s appeal essentially is that, despite the applicant’s compliance with the letter of the law, the letter of the law isn’t good enough and the application should be denied because it might have parking and noise impacts on its neighbors.

Which it very well might. But this complaint feels like more of a call to change the laws, rather than to deny an applicant in spite of his compliance with said laws. But what do I know. I get that folks might have ideological differences with laws like AB 2097 and the Outdoor Dining Ordinance. We’ll see if that means that they’re willing to punish applicants because they follow them.

Finally, two softballs: the beekeeping ordinance will finally become law, and the City Council makes new appointments to the Commissions

Due to the byzantine nature of municipal ordinance production, the poor backyard beekeeping ordinance had to wait yet another month and a half or so for its second-second reading, its last hurdle before it becomes law. Absent some last minute snag I expect it to do so tomorrow.

And at last, perhaps the most interesting item of the night will be the appointment of new commissioners to the Planning Commission, the Parks and Community Services Commission (PACS), and the Arts Commission.

I won’t say much about these as I have thrown my hat into the ring as an applicant for two of these commissions (Planning and PACS). But there are a few locks for the Planning Commission at least. As predicted, former City Council Member Jeff Harlan has applied for the Planning Commission, and he is all but certain to be appointed by Mayor John Stephens. And new City Council Member Mike Buley will very likely re-appoint fellow District 1 resident Jon Zich. It also should be noted that the current Chair of the Planning Commission, Adam Ereth, bowed out and did not apply for reappointment.

Beyond that? It’s a fairly open field. Stay tuned.

* Barrera gave the city some headaches a few years back for failing to comply with its COVID-19 restrictions, and lingering frustration with him shown through at the Planning Commission meeting on this item. However, I thought that, in the new Trump Golden Age (TM), resisting lockdowns would be grounds to give him a medal, not a censure. I digress.