A lot of words and phrases could be used to describe downtown Pismo Beach: funky, eclectic, fun and friendly are just a few.
The Chamber of Commerce uses “Classic California,” its catch phrase to describe the nostalgic, throw-back feel of a 1950s and ’60s beach town.
It’s board shorts and flip-flops, not suits and ties. And it’s definitely “not L.A.”
The city’s Planning Department and RRM Design Group of San Luis Obispo are working to develop a Downtown Vision and Strategic Plan to fit the city’s image, and they held a meeting Wednesday to find out what residents and business owners think.
What they got was an earful of comments and ideas, some popular, some not so much, and others surprising.
While the planning process divided conversation into several topics — the Essence of Pismo, Circulation and Parking, the pier and plaza, buildings and architecture, Pismo Tomorrow and branding the city — ideas and images expressed by the roughly 50 people attending the workshop were a mixture of cohesive and contrary.
Some of the more popular ideas were developing an amphitheater and plaza at the foot of Pismo Pier, adding a movie theater, more landscaping, trees and lighting, and further enhancing the Classic California image.
A few suggestions that didn’t receive much support were more uniform buildings, architecture and paving, marketing the city as the gateway to the Edna Valley wine country, encouraging the use of neon in downtown business signs and, surprisingly, marketing the town as the Clam Capital of the World.
“We have a good section of the community with some residents and some business owners and some visitors,” said Debbie Rudd, a principal with RRM who ran the workshop. “Great comments. Great ideas. Not all agreeing, but really good, strong ideas that I think can be worked into a vision for the downtown and a vision plan for the downtown.
“I was surprised about Clam Capital, because of the history, that there wasn’t more of an identification for the people.”
This isn’t the first time Pismo Beach has worked to develop a plan for its downtown.
Local historian Effie McDermott, who recently authored a book tracing the city’s long and colorful past in photographs, said there have been several efforts, the first beginning in the early 1980s.
That particular vision included a large hotel at the pier, among other improvements.
Even though those plans have changed over the years, she said the town has benefited from previous long-range planning efforts.
“There are many things on this map that didn’t exist when we first started this,” McDermott said, pointing to an aerial photograph of the downtown area used in the discussion.
“The seawall, the plaza, the boardwalk, the diamond pier — there are things that weren’t there before. We always come up with a little something each time.”
Even though the plan was to come up with a future vision of downtown Pismo Beach, many residents’ views included preserving, and even redeveloping, the city’s past.
There wasn’t much support for ridding the city of its eclectic mix of buildings by developing uniform architecture standards. Instead, the idea of going “back the future” was popular.
Suggestions of preserving the city’s small-town charm, its historical buildings and even re-creating such iconic structures as the El Pizmo Inn and the Ferris wheel briefly featured near the foot of the pier were popular concepts.
“I think we just need to not focus on what we want to be,” said Nathan Allan, the only person at the workshop who lives in the downtown core. “I think we need to focus on what we are, which is Classic California. We don’t need any more buildings. We don’t need any more big towers.
“I just think the main focus is to slow down and preserve what is here and just let everyone else build and ruin their cities and keep Pismo, Pismo.”
Rudd said RRM will take the comments, along with others gained from meetings with other individuals and civic groups, and return to the city with a draft plan.
No date for that return has been set. Rudd said it would probably be early spring 2014.
Speak Your Mind