What I Learned as a Planning Commissioner

By Joe Shaw

It's hard sometimes to put yourself in others' shoes and see things from their perspective, but that is the duty of a leader who has other people's fates in their hands. The residents of Huntington Beach elect their leaders and place their faith in them and their appointees in the belief that we will look out for their concerns and the well-being of the city and put residents first when making decisions.

Revisiting those goals after a few months as an active planning commissioner, I found there were a couple of phrases that stuck out to me as being worth repeating and exploring in this column.

One goal was to be "a conscientious, well-prepared commissioner who seeks to serve all interests fairly, and be a voice for the residents of Huntington Beach." Another goal was "to promote policies that continue to make Huntington Beach a great place to live and enhance the experience for our visitors."

I'm proud of what I wrote then and as I look at the things we've decided recently and that we will be looking at in the future, I hope that I will be able to realize these goals.

The people of Huntington Beach deserve no less. I recall hearing a former planning commissioner say his job was to decide if a project was allowed by the laws and codes we have on the books and nothing else.

Trouble is, that's not the intent of the planning process or planning laws as defined by the California people, legislature and the judicial system over the years. The planning process is malleable by nature, with a variety of opportunities for interest groups, developers, politicians and citizens to influence and determine the outcome.

The Guide to California Planning by William Fulton, a textbook used to teach planning issues, says "planning is politics--the classic politics of interest groups with a narrow agenda seeking to acquire enough clout to impose that agenda on a broader public."

"Planning works best in California when a broad variety of interest groups are at work, who are well organized and able to balance each other off. It works poorly when the local political scene is dominated by one interest group or another--environmentalists, homeowners, the Chamber of Commerce--able to ram its agenda through."

Fulton also writes, "...because they are highly susceptible to political pressure, land use regulations can be exploited by anyone able to gain leverage over a city council or county board of supervisors--not just homeowners or slow-growthers, but also big-time developers who need a zone change or some other governmental approval in order to build a project."

I think we could look back at the politics of land use in Huntington Beach and we can see that developers and environmentalists have both had their moments. I think that the environmentalists have had too few of those moments, while others will say they've had too many.

I do believe the planning and entitlement process is absolutely difficult for the average citizen to navigate and therefore, the average resident is the one that too often gets the short end of the land use stick.

So I'll differ from what that former commissioner said and I'll say that a planning commissioner's job is to listen to residents, city staff, developers and their representatives and to get the best possible projects we can for our city. That means asking developers to change their plans if necessary, take into consideration neighborhood concerns and ask them to realize that every project is not always in the city's best interest.

It means making the planning process as transparent as possible, as accessible to residents as possible and for city staff and leaders to bend over backwards to help them find information they need and to understand the process. I can think of a project approved in the last few years where residents and, in fact, whole neighborhoods, stood up to ask city leaders to listen to their concerns.

Many of these residents were more knowledgeable about this project, the issues surrounding it, its effects on our city and their area of town, yet their concerns were brushed aside by leaders who, it was apparent, knew less than they should about the project's ramifications.

It's hard sometimes to put yourself in others' shoes and see things from their perspective, but that is the duty of a leader who has other people's fates in their hands. The residents of Huntington Beach elect their leaders and place their faith in them and their appointees in the belief that we will look out for their concerns and the well-being of the city and put residents first when making decisions.

So before we begin deciding an issue, we'd better take a long walk in our neighbor's shoes.