SEAL BEACH : Planners’ Biggest Pain Is All That Traffic

Those able to find parking spots to attend the city’s first public hearing on the revised Main Street specific plan Wednesday night were not surprised to hear that traffic congestion is among the top issues of area residents and merchants.

A preliminary plan for the downtown area was unveiled at a joint meeting of council members and planning commissioners. The meeting was held just a block from Main Street in City Hall council chambers. The plan is intended to protect the small-town atmosphere of Main Street, said Lee Whittenberg, director of development services.

The current Main Street plan was created in 1976.

Paul C. Zucker, head of Zucker Systems, a San Diego consulting firm hired by the city to draft the new plan, said the downtown area’s primary challenge is to prevent the influx of summer and holiday visitors from overwhelming residents.

“On a day like today, it’s really impossible in this kind of community to try to meet all your parking needs,” Zucker said. “It’s just something that a beach community needs to try to accept.”

Councilman George Brown said putting parking meters on Main Street might be a significant revenue producer and deserves further study. Mayor Marilyn Bruce Hastings said she strongly opposes meters on Main Street.

Zucker has recommended lowering the number of parking places required for some retail businesses but not for restaurants, which he said fill a majority of the Main Street parking slots.

But the 20 Main Street restaurants and businesses that serve and sell alcohol also are responsible for much of the late-night noise and traffic in downtown residential areas, according to resident David Rosenman.

“It was hoped that there could be a more definitive addressing of the liquor-sale issue, in view of the already existing over-concentration,” Rosenman said Wednesday night. “It seems to me, we’ve sort of dropped the ball.”