Welcome!

Welcome to “The Coast Highway Vision and Strategic Plan” web site. This site is intended to inform the public about the master planning effort for the highway corridor that extends 3.1 miles through the City of Oceanside.

Why and how this effort got started

Coast Highway, Oceanside’s iconic coastal corridor (also known as “U.S. Historic Route 101”, or “Hill Street”), traverses the City in a north-south direction a few blocks east of the beach and serves as a local roadway, as well as a pass-through arterial for Interstate 5 traffic. The roadway was officially commissioned as one of the original U.S. highways in the late 1920s. Through the 1920s, 30s and 40s, the car culture phenomenon encouraged the expansion of auto-related businesses along the then named Hill Street, lining its frontage with service stations, car dealerships, and auto supply stores, as well as hotels and restaurants that served travelers who were making their way through Oceanside. Today, Coast Highway is still lined by a significant number of car-oriented and drive-through uses, many of which retain a mid-20th century aesthetic and are in need of revitalization.

On July 10, 2007, recognizing the need to guide in a positive manner the future development growth along this corridor, the City Council assigned top priority to the Coast Highway master planning effort. A request for proposals (RFP) was issued on December 31, 2007, initiating the “Coast Highway Vision and Strategic Plan”. On April 16, 2008, Torti Gallas and Partners, Inc., was selected as the consulting firm to collaborate with the City’s project staff team and the community on this master planning project.

About the master planning effort

Research work commenced on May 1, 2008. Extensive multi-media public outreach was concurrently initiated involving the following: a dedicated web-site, newsletters, presentations to community groups and City Commissions/Committees, two week-long workshops, news articles in Oceanside Magazine, e-mail blasts to interested parties, phone and/or in-person interviews with community stakeholders, a developers forum, mailed notices, news releases, as well as ads and community news section updates in North County Times.

Stakeholder interviews took place on June 11, 12, and 16, 2008. A community design charrette for the North Coast Highway area segment was held from July 28 through August 1, 2008. A second design charrette with a focus on Mid and South Coast Highway was held from August 25 through August 29, 2008. On September 23, 2008, “The Coast Highway Revitalization Development Experts Forum” took place at the Civic Center and input on the draft vision plan was obtained from experts in the development field. Nine City Commissions and Committees reviewed and provided comments on the draft Coast Highway Vision and Strategic Plan document between January 20, 2009, and March 16, 2009.

On January 21, 2009, the City Council directed staff to remove the Oceanside Harbor and Mira Mar Mobile Home Community areas from the Coast Highway Vision and Strategic Plan and on April 15, 2009 the City Council adopted the plan with a 4-1 vote.

The Coast Highway Vision and Strategic Plan

The Coast Highway Vision and Strategic Plan project area encompasses approximately 485 gross acres of land (source: SANDAG), and extends about three-miles from Harbor Drive in the north to the Buena Vista Lagoon in the south. It is divided into three Planning Areas: the North Coast Highway area around the San Luis Rey River and Oceanside Harbor stretching from Harbor Drive to Windward Street; the Mid-Coast Highway Area, between Seagaze Drive and Oceanside Boulevard; and the South Coast Highway area from Oceanside Boulevard to the Buena Vista Lagoon.

The Vision and Strategic Plan serves as a blueprint for the revitalization and enhancement of the Coast Highway corridor. It is an advisory document that is used to guide future development in the area (via urban and building design guidelines) and to inform future legislative planning efforts such as General Plan, Local Coastal Plan and Zoning Ordinance changes pertinent to the project area.

The primary components of the document are; the Vision and Illustrative Plan, the Implementation Strategy; and the Design Guidelines. It should be noted that the Illustrative Plan is conceptual in nature and that its purpose is to depict the primary ideas and key development patterns and not to specifically plan or regulate every single site detail. The plan is meant to illustrate a revitalized Coast Highway: a great, prosperous, urban space with a memorable sequence of authentic and vibrant community places and tourist destinations where a mix of uses that celebrate and reflect the City’s ocean-side location, culture, diversity and community spirit converge.

Through a master design vision, a series of implementation strategies and a set of design guidelines, the Vision and Strategic Plan fosters high-quality design and is intended to stimulate economic investment by defining the framework and goals for future development. The Coast Highway Vision and Strategic Plan objectives are to:

• Reflect the Oceanside Identity (“Brand”) of economic and cultural diversity, coastal character, civic-minded tourism, artistic and artful and environmentally conscious community;
• Promote environmentally and economically sustainable smart growth - transit, pedestrian, bicycle, multigenerational-friendly infill development;
• Enable corridor development by optimizing urban connectivity, capitalizing on transportation/ mobility options and rationalizing parking;
• Maintain adequate regulatory flexibility to accommodate the community’s emerging needs and safeguard the future prosperity of the reinvented district from economic market fluctuations;
• Promote high quality urban and architectural design, sustainable development, synergistic land uses and enhancement of environmental resources through incentives; and
• Promote a preservation ethic that encourages and supports the preservation of Oceanside’s historical heritage and resources to the extent possible.

The Coast Highway plan re-envisions the historic highway and its surroundings, based on Livable Communities and Smart Growth principles and transforms it into a pedestrian-friendly and transit-oriented place that attracts and serves both visitors and residents. The plan accomplishes this by introducing a series of activity areas, or ‘Nodes,’ along Coast Highway (Las Ramblas North “O” node, Transit Center node, Sprinter Station node and South “O” Village node) that are connected by generously landscaped ‘Avenue’ segments.

The Nodes are urbane and town-like, with wide sidewalks and bulb outs at corners, mixed-use buildings adjacent to the sidewalk, and uses that are pedestrian rather than auto-oriented. Each of the four Nodes is proposed to have a unique identity, whether as an entertainment, culture, and hospitality gateway in North Oceanside, a transit-oriented mixed-use center at both the Sprinter Station and the Oceanside Transit Center, or a neighborhood-serving retail street in South Oceanside. Unlike the Node areas, the design of the Avenue segments is less urbane and incorporates a center median, wide front yards, larger multifamily residential uses, and may accommodate auto-oriented uses that have historically been hosted along Coast Highway.

In addition to the Nodes and Avenue areas, the Vision Plan includes a new District, the “Arts, Technology, and Environment District” along Cleveland Street between Wisconsin Ave and Oceanside Boulevard, and preserves an existing residential neighborhood, “Seaside”, located between Seagate Drive and Oceanside Boulevard east of Coast Highway. The Arts, Technology, and Environment District will emphasize the City’s identity as an eclectic and creative community and will affirm the City’s commitment to fostering innovative and arts-related businesses. The Seaside neighborhood is proposed to be preserved in recognition of this area’s contribution to Oceanside’s unique identity as a beach community.

The final, full version of the adopted Coast Highway Vision and Strategic Plan document can be accessed directly by clicking on the following link Final Coast Highway Vision and Strategic Plan (27.8 MB)