The City of Long Beach is examining replacement of the current on-street parking meters with a standardized, single-space smart meter system capable of accepting credit card payment.  After significant study of the issues, City staff believes smart meters with in-ground sensors can provide significant benefit to motorists, businesses and the City.  These meters are easy to use, take both coin and credit card, and can provide data such as the number of available parking spaces Citywide.  While providing a number of benefits, these meters come with additional cost and operational considerations.  A rate increase of $0.50 per hour will be needed to ensure that the City can afford smart meters in the future as credit card use becomes more prominent or higher than expected, or if revenue from the installation of the new meters does not materialize.  The study concluded that, even with the rate increase, Long Beach will still have at or below average parking meter rates, maintaining our competitive advantage over other beach cities.

We value your input as the City looks to potentially upgrade our on-street parking meters. We will aggregate and anonymize the input collected, and share the feedback with the City Council.

For more information, please read the Parking Meter Study: Parking Meter Survey

Questions? Please email: parkingmeterstudy@longbeach.gov. 

The City of Long Beach intends to continue moving forward with the momentum from previous efforts that support open government. Attached is the proposed Open Data Policy and is being shared with the intent of informing the public and inviting feedback.

The proposed draft is open for review and comment. Members of the community are welcome to provide feedback regarding the current policy’s strengths and shortfalls, effectiveness, as well as what should be included or better accounted for in a revised policy. We encourage you to provide your input, both positive and constructive, by joining the discussion forum.

In a continual effort to increase transparency, efficiency and participation, the City of Long Beach is preparing to launch its open data portal, OpenLB. The goal of OpenLB is to empower people to research, analyze and innovate using information important to their community.

Therefore, the City of Long Beach is committed to providing open data in a manner that is thoughtful and strategic.  We would like the data to not only provide transparency, but to also provide value to citizens to use in new and innovative ways.

This is where you come in.  We invite you to engage with us in providing input that can assist in the formation of our open data policies, procedures and in determining what data will be provided. 

In addition to your online feedback, we encourage you to attend an upcoming Open Data forum. For dates and locations of the forums, view this flyer.

To complete a survey regarding your interest in Open Data, go to www.longbeach.gov/open-data-survey.

Stay tuned for more information.

The Long Beach Sustainable City Commission and the City of Long Beach Office of Sustainability are seeking public input on the prioritization of sustainability action items for the coming year (2016-2017). We invite you to engage with us in this ongoing discussion of sustainability priorities for the coming year.

We encourage you to take a look at the action items proposed in the Long Beach Sustainable City Action Plan (SCAP). Adopted by City Council in 2010, the SCAP is intended to guide operational policy and financial decisions to create a more sustainable Long Beach. The SCAP is organized by seven key focus areas with each focus area containing a list of sustainability action items. If there are specific actions you feel should be prioritized for this year, please address them in the Focus Area Topics listed below. We also welcome you to review the action items we prioritized this past year in our 2015-2016 Work Plan. 

In addition to your online feedback, we encourage you to attend a special public comment component of the Sustainable City Commission meeting on Thursday, August 25th from 4:00pm to 6:00pm in the City Council Chamber of City Hall at 333 W. Ocean Blvd. Members of the community will be able to address the Sustainable City Commission on the prioritization of sustainability action items. 

For more information about the Sustainable City Commission and the City of Long Beach Office of Sustainability, please visit: http://www.longbeach.gov/sustainability/

Mayor Robert Garcia has created an Affordable and Workforce Housing Study Group made up of community leaders, housing advocates, developers, and policy experts, with the goal of creating innovative policy solutions to preserve and increase the supply of affordable and workforce housing in Long Beach. The Study Group is committed to exploring new ideas on how affordable and workforce housing can be encouraged and funded.

We invite you to engage with the Study Group and provide input and ideas that can assist in the creation of a comprehensive housing policy document that will provide tools to increase the supply of affordable and workforce housing in Long Beach.

In addition to your online feedback, we encourage you to attend the Housing Resource Fair and Community Forum to be held on September 24, 2016 at Cesar E. Chavez Park Community Center. Click HERE to view the flyer. 

For questions about these events, contact Andrew Chang at (562) 570-6710 or Andrew.chang@longbeach.gov.

For additional information, visit www.lbds.info/housing_and_community_improvement.

This information is available in alternative format by request to (562) 570-3807. 

In response to a request by Mayor Robert Garcia, the Long Beach Economic Development Commission (Commission) will create an Economic Development Blueprint (Blueprint) to support the creation of businesses, well-paying jobs, and increased economic activity. The plan will be based on data gathered by Beacon Economics, LLC and will eventually come to City Council for adoption in April 2017.

More information regarding the Blueprint, including Commission meeting dates and times, can be found at www.longbeach.gov/blueprint.