Southern California City Pins Hopes for Transformation on General Plan Update

"The [Carson] City Council hired San Francisco-based urban planning firm Dyett & Bhatia earlier this month to oversee public outreach and rewrite the city’s 2004 General Plan," reports Sandy Mazza for the Daily Breeze. "The firm outbid five other companies for the two-year job."

“It’s going to set the stage for future development in the community,” City Manager Ken Farfsing said. “This is going to be a totally different city in five to 10 years.

Carson, population 100,000 [pdf], is the youngest city in the South Bay of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, 12th youngest among Los Angeles County's 88 cities [pdf]. The city celebrates its 50th anniversary next year.

As an unincorporated region in the county, it was unable to prevent the location of necessary but unsightly regional facilities, according to the city's history webpage.

By the time Carson finally incorporated as a city in 1968, its landscape was pockmarked with the dozens of refuse dumps, landfills, and auto dismantling plants which none of its neighbors would have in their own cities.

The city also has a history of oil drilling which led to the development of refineries and left a brownfield legacy. "Much of the developable land is contaminated by closed landfills or industrial waste," adds Mazza. But times are changing.

The city’s downtown, along Carson Street between the 405 and 110 freeways, has seen a huge boom in residential development in recent years. Hundreds of new apartments have been built in multiuse developments that include retail shops, eateries and offices.

A critical component of the general plan update will be to generate revenue through economic development.

“The city has been running on a structural deficit for the past several years. It is critical that this update examine ways to balance the increasing cost of providing services with limited sources of revenue,” the document states.

“The city’s economic viability may be at risk unless it formulates new strategies to promote fiscally sound practices.”

Hat tip to L.A. Transportation Headlines.