A $300 million effort, the plan was coordinated by the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association over about two years and jointly funded by the California Coastal  Conservancy, the National Park Service and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The goal of the Ocean Beach Master Plan is to preserve hundreds of millions of dollars in public infrastructure and the beach itself from coastal erosion caused by rising sea levels and other factors.

But to protect Ocean Beach, the Ocean Beach Master Plan proposes to change it. One of the most noticeable changes for local residents would be the plan’s proposal to reroute traffic that now travels on the Great Highway extension south of Sloat Boulevard, diverting it around the north and east sides of the San Francisco Zoo.

This move would relieve San Francisco from the burden of trying to protect the road by constructing seawalls or dumping boulders onto the beach. These methods not only have had mixed results, but they also have resulted in lawsuits against them and get in the way of measures to protect the far more expensive wastewater infrastructure that’s nearby, including the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant.

As with many of the master plan’s proposals, shifting the Great Highway traffic would require more money and study before anything changes — which might mean things stay as they are for a decade, even if there’s consensus from the public and all the agencies involved. That kind of consensus can be a slippery thing, and the need for it could prove to be the biggest challenge to the Ocean Beach Master Plan since the agencies and individuals involved in crafting the plan have no legal obligation to follow  it.

Planners and officials plan a press conference about the Ocean Beach Master Plan with Mayor Ed Lee Monday, July 9 at 11:30 a.m. The exact location has not been determined yet, but it will be somewhere along Ocean Beach.

Read the entire final Ocean Beach Master Plan here:
Ocean Beach Master Plan052012