It’s been a long time coming, but the Belmont Pool Replacement Project has finally been granted approval by the California Coastal Commission.
The project was approved by a 10-1 vote during the commission’s monthly meeting Feb. 11, with the Belmont Beach and Aquatics Center set to be built in Long Beach neighborhood Belmont Shore.
The vote had been delayed from December due to noticing issues.
According to Long Beach outlet The Grunion, several commissioners voiced their concerns with the center’s location in an upscale neighborhood during a time when equitable use is imperative. They argued that a more concrete plan in showing the rest of the city how it could access the facility needed to be in place before approval.
“How do we bake equity in here?” asked Commissioner Effie Turnbull-Sanders of Los Angeles. “Frankly, I would have expected to see a more robust outreach… To support this project, I’d have to see more from the city to promote equity.”
The Aquatics Center will be located on the ocean, something that Commission Chair Steve Padilla argued would promote equity by bringing inner city children somewhere they normally wouldn’t go.
“I’ll put this as delicately as I can, but there’s also a long history of advocates coming from communities of privilege,” Padilla said. “And they go to communities of color and say we can’t do this project or that. This is a citywide asset.”
Long Beach City Manager Tom Modica added: “A lot of the discussion was about equity, and we’re totally supportive of that. But we really couldn’t go out and talk about what we could do until we knew we had a project. Now we have a project, and we can go to the community.”
Modica says that several stages of the planning process will now commence, including final construction drawings, financing and equity planning. It’s estimated that it will take a year before construction can get underway.
Among the pools feature will include:
- A 50-meter by 25-yard outdoor pool
- 1,500 permanent spectators seats
- A recreational/play/therapy pool
- The current temporary outdoor pool at the site would be made permanent to give the facility 2 50-meter pools.
- The diving well and towers would be outside at the Northeast corner of the project.
Two outdoor 50 meter pools? No indoor right? Little confused about what will be in that building on the drawing.
That picture above was the original plan. They need to update to a more current photo. Its two outdoor pools plus some wading pools for kids and the dive pool.
Congratulations to every person that worked so hard to re-create one of the great venues in the history of American Swimming. Those folks, that exhibit these years of dedication to the collective good, are one of the reasons America has been able to stay ahead of the world in competitive swimming. Southern California badly needs a great indoor competitive facility.