As the city’s planning experts, Saccardi & Schiff, said in a 2005 report, “City of Long Beach Comprehensive Plan, Technical Memorandum, Existing Conditions/Issues and Opportunities,” “The neighborhood character of a community is comprised of a series of building blocks that add up to an attractive physical environment that provides a high quality of life for its residents. Those building blocks include a community’s built and natural environment, its land use plan and zoning regulations, its visual image and historic character…. Some amendments have been made [to the Code] . . . in an attempt to reduce the heights and bulk of home renovations and new construction and maintain existing neighborhood character.

They go on to state, “The major inconsistency with zoning regulations throughout the city relates to the bulk regulations (i.e., size, height) of the zoning ordinance . . .It is these variances to bulk regulations that potentially impact community character...”

Saccardi & Schiff repeatedly speak to low scale uses, issues of scale, the current absence of cohesive design, unsightly mix of structures, opportunity for coordinated streetscape design, the lack of, and the need to provide for, a clear vision for the city’s neighborhoods and their future.

The thrust of the report is that design, scale and cohesion are critically important to the community as whole. And much focus was given to variances to bulk regulations (i.e., height and footprint). Two 15-story towers are not remotely within scale of the surrounding area and would be an absurd breach of our bulk regulations.