Thursday, February 6, 2025
In the interest of more efficiently managing development in Long Beach, the City Council continues its plans to create a planning board, something the city has never had.
At its meeting on Jan. 21, the council approved amendments to the city charter and local ordinances to establish the board. The move is intended to ensure that future development projects have greater oversight and long-term vision. The decision follows years of discussions about balancing growth, infrastructure demands and preserving the city’s character.
“I was just really happy with this legislation,” Councilman Chris Fiumara said, “because it stops the overdevelopment in Long Beach and allows things to not just go through the zoning board anymore, but have a plan and go with people from the community on the planning board to see if a project fits the vision of the residents of Long Beach.”
The new board will review and approve site plans, subdivisions and large development projects, focusing on their design as well as their impact on traffic and the environment. Unlike the Zoning Board of Appeals, which handles individual variances, the planning board will take a broader approach to development. Smaller residential projects will not fall under its purview.
The board will also include an architectural re-view panel, which will assess architectural designs and specifications. As a result, the planning board will handle all aspects of the review process, helping to ensure consistency and give proposals a more comprehensive analysis — and its decisions more administrative heft. The city plans to establish a 62-day limit on board reviews.
“Sometimes it appears that the city is being taken advantage of,” Council President Brendan Finn said. “I feel that the planning board will be an obstacle to that, perhaps, and hopefully a really great resource for the city, for developers, for residents to get the city to the vision that all of us — some of us — aspire to. I know we all don’t agree, we have different opinions of the way the city should be, but I think the planning board will be something that will really be helpful to this city going forward.”
The board’s future appointees will undergo four hours of training, and experience in planning will be preferred, but there will be no required qualifications. City employees will be prohibited from serving on the panel.
“I would like to thank this administration for … moving the city forward in a nonpartisan way to continue to create this planning board,” said Michael Negri, one of 10 members of the Planning Advisory Board, which worked with the city’s Department of Planning and Development — and which will be renamed once the planning board is established, to avoid confusion. “Which is going to go a very long way to protect the citizens of the city for things like this multi-million-dollar settlement that we’re paying in taxes right now.”
Negri was referring to the Haberman settlement, which concluded a decades-long dispute with the developer Sinclair Haberman, who had filed a $130 million suit against the city after it revoked a building permit for a luxury condo project.
City Manager Dan Creighton read a note at the meeting from the Nassau County Planning Commission praising Long Beach’s efforts to modernize its development review process. County officials highlighted the importance of proactive planning, particularly in a city with unique challenges like waterfront management and the need for resilient infrastructure to address climate-related risks.
Council members assured meeting attendees that they would monitor the board’s activities to ensure that it runs smoothly, without unnecessary red tape. They emphasized that the board’s purpose is not to discourage development, but to guide it in order to align with community priorities and long-term sustainability.
The planning board is set to begin operations later this year, with the city now focused on appointing qualified members and finalizing the procedural framework that will guide its work.
