July 16, 2001
Contact: Jim Burns (831) 459-2495; jrburns@cats.ucsc.edu
UCSC will hold fourth community meeting on plans for Long Marine Laboratory on
Monday, July 30
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SANTA CRUZ, CA--The University of California, Santa Cruz, will hold a public workshop on Monday, July 30, to discuss progress toward developing a Coastal Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) for Long Marine Laboratory. The meeting will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. in the La Feliz Room of the Seymour Center at Long Marine Laboratory (100 Shaffer Road, Santa Cruz).
Anyone interested in this topic is urged to attend the workshop and provide input,
share information, or ask questions.
At the workshop, UCSC staff and project consultants are planning to continue a discussion
of the wetland areas of the site, describe a revised site plan, and review the project
schedule.
A UCSC planning committee, which includes representatives of the city of Santa Cruz
and staff from the California Coastal Commission, has been working since fall 1999
to develop plans for the Long Marine Lab site, including the 55 acres acquired by
UCSC in spring 1999.
In December of that year, the committee adopted a set of planning principles for
developing the site as a marine research and education center that were presented
to the public at an open house. They were published in a document entitled Planning
Principles: Marine Research and Education Center.
The university has hired a consulting team--EHDD Architecture, a San Francisco firm
that developed the original Long Marine Lab Master Plan over 20 years ago and also
designed the Monterey Bay Aquarium; and BMS Planning Consultants, also from San Francisco--to
prepare the Coastal LRDP for the site. In spring 2000, the consultants and the planning
committee met with interested parties in a series of focus-group workshops. Environmental
groups, agricultural interests, and the Terrace Point Action Network were among the
participants in the focus groups.
At the second public meeting, held in June 2000, the consultants and the planning
committee presented the input they had received from the focus groups. In addition,
consultants unveiled six different schematics, showing how the site might be developed
as a marine research and education center.
At the third public meeting, held last October, three site concepts were presented
and discussed.
This past December, meanwhile, the expansion of Long Marine Lab was discussed at
a meeting of the Coastal Commission in San Francisco. Commissioners at that meeting
asked UCSC staff and consultants to re-examine the boundaries of a seasonal pond
and the drainage areas that make up the wetlands on the site.
At the upcoming workshop, the results of that wetlands review will be discussed.
The consultants will also present a revised site plan, reflecting past discussions
about incorporating research and educational facilities on the site, preserving open
space on the site, and providing housing that would support the needs of the marine
programs there.
Following the July 30 community workshop, it is expected that the consultants will
complete a schematic for the site. The schematic will serve as the basis for the
Coastal Long Range Development Plan--and accompanying Environmental Impact Report--that
the university will prepare for consideration by the UC Regents and the California
Coastal Commission, probably sometime next year.
Editor's Note: For maps of the site and additional project information,
go to www2.ucsc.edu/ppc/planning/lml.html.
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