LONG BEACH >> A final community workshop will be held Wednesday before city officials and their consultants begin work on a rewrite of a plan that will guide land use and development in the southeast region of the city.

The Southeast Area Development and Improvement Plan, or SEADIP, was passed in 1977 as a master zoning plan, particularly around the Pacific Coast Highway and Second Street intersection. A revision has been sought for several years, largely because every development in the area has included conditional use permits and other exceptions to the original document.

The City Council ordered a new master plan in December 2012 after proposals for developing SeaPort Marina Hotel were turned away for the third time. It took nearly a year to find the financing for the $1 million revision and to hire a consultant, a group called PlaceWorks, but public outreach began early last year.

Wednesday’s meeting, which will start at 6:30 p.m. in the Marina Room at Best Western Golden Sails Hotel, 6285 E. PCH, will be conducted as a workshop, according to Angela Reynolds, deputy director of the Development Services Department.

“It will be more of an open house, with a half-hour of presentation, then the consulting experts will be at tables to address specific issues,” Reynolds said.

At an earlier meeting in December, the presentation focused on what could be viably developed in the area while maintaining the Los Cerritos Wetlands and taking advantage of Alamitos Bay Marina. Without offering specifics, the consultants’ conclusion was that economic viability would require a fairly dense mixed-use development that would include retail, residential and — in the case of the SeaPort Marina property — a hotel.

Key to that conclusion is the expectation that any developer would be required to provide community benefits ranging from open space to meeting areas or wetlands interpretive centers. Splitting large parcels with through streets would increase view corridors and make developments more pedestrian friendly, the consultants said.

Reynolds said that people could submit comments and suggestions at Wednesday’s meeting. The city also has created a virtual town hall for comments and discussion about SEADIP at www.lbds.info/seadip_update. That site also offers documents, reference materials and power point presentations, including the one presented at the last CAC meeting.

Reynolds said that after this last public workshop, the consultants would begin writing a specific plan, with a goal to begin the Environmental Impact Report late this year.

“That means we’re pretty much exactly on schedule with our timeline,” Reynolds said. “That’s pretty good.”

This is the second year of what is expected to be a three-year process. The final plan will have to get multiple approvals, from the city Planning Commission, the City Council and the state Coastal Commission.

Harry Saltzgaver is executive director of Gazette Newspapers. He can be reached at hsalt@gazettes.com.