Fog lifts on future of Ocean Beach

After tireless deliberation, a plan for preserving Ocean Beach is finally here.

The Ocean Beach Master Plan made its debut last week after much discussion within the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association.

The California Coastal Conservancy, the National Park Service and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission all funded the two-year process.

The cost of developing the plan bordered around $400,000. The cost of actually putting these proposals into practice will be somewhere along $300 to $400 million.

Planners said that preserving hundreds of millions of dollars in public infrastructure — such as the Oceanside Water Pollution Control — wasn’t at the top of their priority list. It was, though, taken into consideration during its development.

One element of this plan reroutes traffic along the Great Highway extension around the north and east sides of the San Francisco Zoo.

This means The City wouldn’t have to worry about preserving the road by creating seawalls or dumping boulders on the beach. This also could mean hellish traffic and messy transitions.

SPUR’s Benjamin Grant, who led the planning process, said that this costly solution just makes more sense and that the money going toward it would simply go toward erosion-prevention efforts otherwise:

“We’re talking about a crisis situation where we’re going to be spending money dealing with it.”

But let’s not forget, all of this is still merely a bunch of proposals that will require more study before they go into effect. A consensus is required from the public and all involved agencies. This won’t be easy to obtain.

Officials and planners have planned a press conference about the master plan with Mayor Ed Lee next Monday at Ocean Beach.