UPDATE of the DOWNTOWN SPECIFIC PLAN And/Or CEQA ANALYSIS & DOCUMENTATION (EIR)

EL SEGUNDO DEVELOPMENT SERVICES DEPARTMENT REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS UPDATE OF THE DOWNTOWN SPECIFIC PLAN and/or CEQA ANALYSIS & DOCUMENTATION (EIR) October 14, 2020 Inquiries regarding these projects should be directed to: Paul Samaras, Principal Planner [email protected] Deadline: Tuesday, December 1, 2020 at 4:00 pm This is a Request for Proposals (RFP) with two primary components: 1. Assist the City to identify, evaluate and ultimately adopt the most appropriate planning tools to achieve the City’s objectives for re-imagining Downtown; and 2. Prepare an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) or Mitigated Negative Declaration if appropriate for project implementation as well as likely future build-out that is anticipated. The City is seeking experienced yet innovative consulting firms or teams to perform one or both projects. Interested parties are encouraged to respond to the zoning part, the CEQA part, or both. Background on Downtown El Segundo The City of El Segundo was incorporated in 1917. El Segundo is considered part of the South Bay sub-region in the southwestern edge of the Los Angeles Coastal Basin. Downtown Los Angeles is about 20 freeway miles from El Segundo. The City has 5.46 square miles with a resident population of about 17,000. The daytime population is over 75,000. The residential population is located west of Pacific Coast Highway on approximately 533 acres of land. The industrial and commercial area east of Pacific Coast Highway represents Fortune 500 companies and a range of businesses including aerospace, biotech, and travel related companies. Commercial development in the City continues to far outstrip the region’s ability to provide affordable housing for those employed in El Segundo. The original city center was built at the north entrance to the Standard Oil refinery, now Chevron refinery. This is where El Segundo’s downtown was established. Nearly all of the tremendous industrial and commercial growth of the city described in the paragraph above occurred after the Second World War and one to two miles east of downtown on the other side of Sepulveda Boulevard, now called Pacific Coast Highway. Except for a narrow strip of small industrial support businesses that sprouted up along the northern edge of the refinery in an area called Smoky Hollow, the area surrounding downtown became essentially all residential and institutional uses. Downtown became hemmed in by residential and never grew larger than about eight commercial blocks, just large enough to serve the city’s small population. Background on the Downtown Specific Plan Downtown thrived at times, but in the 1990s, there was a sense that Downtown needed a boost to reverse a slow economic decline. In 1998 the City Council created the Downtown Task Force to study the issues and make recommendations. Two years later the result was the Downtown Specific Plan (DSP). The Plan’s 10-year vision was to: • Provide a better balance of uses within Downtown; • Create a more thoughtful and creative use of public space, especially at City Hall; • Organize creative and consistent programming of events and public activities; • Create a consistent public-private partnership to market El Segundo's assets to investors and customers; • Strengthen commitment to the strategic use of key parcels in the Downtown; • Create more attractive landscaping and street furnishings; • Improve signage. 1 Vision and Goals for Downtown The first and most vital step of reimagining Downtown is community and stakeholder outreach and input gathering. From this exercise a true community vision can be discovered. It is critical to reach voices not often heard because Downtown plays a role in the lives of many people. The community’s expectations of Downtown have evolved over 20 years as have the city’s demographics and composition of its workforce. Still, today’s city leaders have a similar strategic vision for Downtown’s prosperity and growth as those in 2000, but they recognize the need to adapt to changing expectations and shifting needs. The DSP no longer serves the needs of a city actively planning its own future rather than just reacting to events of the present. In the City’s 2020-2022 Strategic Plan there are five goals that address the needs of Downtown. These are: • A continued focus on Main Street infrastructure improvements; • Repurposing the Civic Center site, which is a prominent part of downtown; • Reimagining the downtown area; • Attract senior living facilities to the City; and • Identify areas within the community that are appropriate for housing. Based on these strategic goals, the staff sought direction from the City Council on August 18, 2020, to prepare this RFP and to also prepare an RFQ to specifically address the Civic Center site. Based on the City Council’s consent, this RFP will focus primarily on Re-imagining Downtown. Downtown in 2020 In recent years, downtown is exhibiting some signs of renewed investment along with diversification of tenants. The City wants to encourage private investment and enhanced public amenities on a consistent basis. Absent a cohesive strategic approach to land use and development combined with an infusion of significant private investment, Downtown may not reach its optimal potential to serve the City and its residents. The DSP does not adequately address and approach to Downtown that would enable it to revitalize potential. Following are some examples of problems identified within downtown and the role the DSP plays in slowing the process to finding solutions: • Downtown businesses lack customers. The Downtown businesses that cater to the tens of thousands of workers coming to El Segundo every weekday are typically prosperous. After working hours and on weekends, however, many of these Downtown businesses struggle. The lack of a stable base of customers centered on Downtown limits its economic vitality. The DSP’s limit of one residential unit per 3,500 square feet of lot area, coupled with other development standards, has resulted in less than ten new units being built downtown since 2000. 2 • Private lots and old buildings with minimal or no historic significance are not being built on or replaced. The DSP’s development standards make development of most empty lots or ageing structures challenging. In addition, many of the DSP standards applied to commercial lots are not appropriate to Downtown’s historic setting. • Parking standards are particularly onerous. The oldest buildings in Downtown were built with little room for parking, but the DSP deals with parking at the lot level instead of as a collective problem that should be addressed at the Plan-level. Even with nonconforming consideration and an in-lieu parking program, new construction is not occurring. Outcomes and Timing The City anticipates some basic outcomes from what eventually replaces the DSP. Some of these are carryovers and some are driven by new realities. The following Outcomes are to be considered as the minimum expectations that all proposals must address. The new planning regime for Downtown must do the following: • Maintain the general “feel” of Downtown, often described as Midwestern. This is essential because it is the most distinguishing feature of Downtown. There is no dominant architectural form, and building materials are varied. Emphasis should be on form and quality of appearance. • Historically significant structures were carefully identified in the DSP. This work should be expanded and enhanced. • Be able to accommodate medium to high density mixed use or other higher intensity projects. Several sites within Downtown can be identified as more likely to be developed at a greater density, higher floor area ratio, or greater height than the majority of Downtown sites. The City desires to have multiple development tiers with the top tier available for large projects, but subject to higher levels of scrutiny and public hearings. • Provide for stronger and safe connections to surrounding neighborhoods with emphasis on walkability and bicycle friendly accommodations. • Allow the City and businesses more flexibility to adapt to economic disruptions, both sudden (COVID-19) and long-term (transition to Internet shopping). • Parking management solutions that address parking as a community issue. • Downtown must be part of the housing plan. El Segundo’s need to supply senior housing, workforce housing, affordable family housing, to name a few badly needed housing types, could be greatly assisted if more units were developed in Downtown. This would relieve the burden to add units in other areas of the city and benefit businesses as well. 3 The City is open to considering a comprehensive overhaul of the Downtown Specific Plan, the replacement of the Plan altogether, as well as any other zoning tools, such as form-based regulations, that might best meet the City’s goals and achieve the intended outcomes. It is expected that various recommended approaches may be significantly more costly than others, therefore total cost will not be a key selection factor if costs are not unreasonable and are offset by efficiency meeting the City’s objectives. Time is especially important for this project due to interconnected ongoing and soon-to-start projects. Most time sensitive among these is the Housing Element update. Housing is already permitted in the Downtown Specific Plan, but for numerous reasons is largely undeveloped. Downtown will play an important role in fulfilling the City’s housing goals. Another critical timing consideration is the anticipated redevelopment of City-owned property, including parking lots, fire and police stations, and City Hall (collectively the Civic Center Site). Released shortly after this RFP will be an RFQ to launch a process to find a developer-partner to explore repurposing the Civic Center site, in whole or partially. Downtown zoning regulation developed in response to this RFP must be capable of allowing and controlling the mass and form of the Civic Center Site Project no later than end of summer 2022.

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