Cardiff’s Very Specific Plan

It’s been seven years worth of workshops, hundreds of thousand’s of taxpayer dollars, and hundreds of volunteer hours, for Cardiff to finally agree on a General Plan for their community.

It started back in 2001 with the Community Consensus Conference, followed by a conference for the community to decide on a vision, then a parking study, and then about a dozen or so worth of workshops.

In May of 2007, the Cardiff Specific Plan Area Review Committee was formed to go over the findings from the previous 6 years.

Nine months, 780 volunteer hours from community members, and thousands of dollars later, the residents of Cardiff gathered at Encinitas City Hall on September 18th in hopes of hearing the city council adopt the specific plan.

Over 20 speakers spoke in favor of the plan, which aimed to preserve ocean views and revitalize the business corridor, in addition to preserving the overall, laid back, surf city vibe. They spoke about the many comprises over mixed-use projects and land usage that the community was able to see past.

Of all the speakers, only a few spoke out in opposition.

Even Mayor Jerome Stocks had heard enough. “I’m really, frankly, kind of burned out and am empathetic for the community. Enough of the workshops, for goodness sakes, and enough with all of the meetings.”

One Cardiff resident urged the city council to adopt the community plan “without a wish, without a hope, and without a single recommendation.”

Despite the resident’s plea, the city council did have a few recommendations. They wanted city staff to reword some of the language used in the Specific Plan, to “clean it up a bit.” The city council also wanted city staff to address access into the alleys and to include some special circumstances for lot usage. The council concluded that it would be best to put on another workshop for the community to come down and see the final product. Even Mayor Stocks agreed on the workshop idea, despite his earlier sentiments.

“We can have a nice little workshop, maybe some lunch and we can look at this on a parcel to parcel basis.”

The council sent the plan back to city staff for amendments to be made.

For more information of the Cardiff Specific Plan Area Review Committee’s findings, check out the city of Encinitas’ website at ci.encinitas.ca.us, or wait for the next workshop, like every other resident of Cardiff has during the last seven years.