July 9, 2019

To:          Jim Nakagawa,

City of Imperial Beach Planning Department:

Thank you for your outline of the status of the General Plan/Local Coastal (LCP) plan as written below.  I appreciate your candor and outreach efforts to the public.  You are a good public servant and I have appreciated your efforts over the years and the service you have given to the City of Imperial Beach and its citizens.

Some of your stated information inaccurate or is lacking details and I would like correct them:

• The LCP has been in the works for more than 5 years. As the attached document by the California Coastal Commission (CCC) shows in 2015’ they gave approval to Mayor Serge Dedina to increase housing densitys of up to 35% to developers.

Unfortunately a majority of Imperial Beach City citizens have significant and overriding concerns about the history and involvement of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) prior to the release of the LCP to the public.  The approach taken in the creation of the GP/LCP and the acceptance of grants from the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), California Coastal Commission (CCC) and other NGO’s gives these groups, who do not live in Imperial Beach, a disproportionate interest and comment in the early LCP development in Imperial Beach.  These early LCP processes where not made known to the public until late September of 2018.  Over the last eight to nine months the details of the development of the LCP has slowly come to light and many of the facts are still not known.  This concealment of the early development of the LCP have denied the local Imperial Beach public access to knowledge and has the effect of excluding the public from direct and tangible comment on the basics of the LCP.  This recent history has made many people to come to the opinion that, as written, we should not accept any portion of the GP/LCP including the Climate Action Plan nor should we accept grants from SANDAG which are in conflict with the LCP mission statement.

The public concerns are as follows.

On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 1:32 PM Jim Nakagawa <jnakagawa@imperialbeachca.gov> wrote:

Attention Interested Citizens!

The City of Imperial Beach has been in the process of updating its General Plan/Local Coastal Program (LCP) and developing a Climate Action Plan (CAP) for the past 2 years.  The City has sought to update its policies, requirements, and programs to guide future development such that they addressed climate change and sea level rise (SLR) impacts in order for the City to become resilient in the face of these environmental challenges.

The City has been fortunate in being able to obtain grants from the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) that funded plans for and constructed many of the improvements that the community utilizes today.  In order to qualify for future grants, however, SANDAG is now requiring cities to adopt a Climate Action Plan (CAP) and a Complete Streets Policy by July 27, 2019.

The City released the draft LCP/GP Update, CAP, and Negative Declaration on March 25, 2019 for a 45-day public review and comment period from March 25, 2019 to May 15, 2019.  The City tentatively scheduled the adoption of the LCP/GP Update that included the Land Use Plan (LUP) and the Implementation Plan (IP), the CAP, and the Final ND for the City Council meetings of June 19, 2019 and July 17, 2019.  Due to the extensive and substantial comments received, the City will not be considering the LCP on June 19^th but will be considering the Mobility Element (that contains the Complete Streets Principles) of the LCP/GP, the CAP, and the ND for adoption on July 17, 2019 and will consider the adoption of the other elements of the LUP and the IP at a future hearing.  Due to the crucial issues raised by the Coastal Commission (CCC), the City will be holding discussions with Coastal staff to try to resolve issues with the proposed LCP Update.  The LCP Update will need to be certified by the CCC in order for it to be effective.