DEL MAR — With downtown revitalization on the agenda, it was practically standing room only at the April 7 City Council meeting. More than a dozen speakers, most of them downtown property or business owners, addressed the council. Although comments varied, the message was the same: Council must act quickly to adopt rules that provide incentives to reinvest in their businesses.

“The way to grow a business is capital improvements, and at this point, I can’t make any,” said Keith Nordling, owner of Jimmy O’s restaurant. “We’re not asking for money. We’re asking for permission to grow our businesses.”

“En Fuego (restaurant) … brings in lots of (sales tax) money for the city. (John Wingate) would like to enhance it,” said attorney Tricia Smith, who owns the property that includes her law office and En Fuego. No matter what he wants to do to improve the property, he can’t because current zoning laws don’t allow it, she said.

Council members didn’t

argue. “It’s time to act,”

said Councilman Carl Hilliard. “The need for us to revitalize downtown

is more and more pressing.”

Hilliard and Councilman Richard Earnest co-authored an action plan presented at the meeting. The report recommends preparing a specific plan for the downtown area and pursuing code amendments. It outlines 11 potential amendment modifications that address key issues such as floor area ratio, height limits and parking.

“People think parking is an issue in this town,” Earnest said. “We have to make that better.”

With commercial parking spilling into residential areas, Councilwoman Crystal Crawford noted “residents are being held hostage by all the cars that are creeping up in their neighborhoods.” Three of the 11 recommended code amendments offer parking solutions that would modify off-street parking regulations and establish an in-lieu parking program.

Increasing floor area ratio, or FAR, was cited as another key component for successful revitalization. “I’ve been told over and over again … that a (45 percent) floor area ratio for downtown structures in the central commercial zone will not allow anybody to do anything with their properties. In fact, a lot of the properties can’t make it as they are with 45 percent. It is our suggestion that floor area ratio be changed dramatically,” Earnest said. “If we’re not going to have the stomach to do that, then we’re wasting our time.”

FAR controls the size of a building on a lot. A 10,000-square-foot, one-story building on a 10,000-square-foot lot has a 100 percent FAR. Build that same structure as a two-story building on the same lot and the resulting FAR is 50 percent. According to business owners, redevelopment is not cost-effective with Del Mar’s current 45 percent FAR.

The plan also calls for modifying the current 14-foot height limit for buildings on the west side of Camino del Mar. Recommendations include allowing an increase for projects when another portion of the site is lowered to provide a view corridor.

Everyone attending the meeting supported the plan, as did four of the five council members.

“The tone of this report is not acceptable to me,” Mayor David Druker said. “For us to assume we can just change the floor area ratio and … height limit and next week we’ll have more sales tax is ludicrous.”

Druker said there were certain items in the proposal he couldn’t support without a specific plan, which he said can’t be developed until council members agree on the future of the City Hall site. Although specific plans allow local governments to lay out development standards for a particular site, state requirements can make them more costly and time-consuming to prepare.

Council voted 4-1, with Druker dissenting, to authorize $250,000 for staff to return within six months with recommendations on key problems outlined in the report and to add an energy ordinance to stimulate energy efficiency.