As Marina crafts a downtown plan, property owners worry it will be bad for business.

Time is ticking for those who want to provide feedback on the draft environmental impact report for Marina’s downtown specific plan. The last day for public review is Friday, May 24. The goal of the plan is turning a portion of old Marina, near the intersection of Del Monte Boulevard and Reservation Road, into a more walkable, higher-density downtown.

Under the current plan, an unknown number of properties would become nonconforming, a fact that has caught the attention and concern of several property owners. “It would prohibit us from renovating or remodeling,” says Bob Garrison of Sierra Properties, which owns Seacrest Plaza Shopping Center on Reservation Road.

One factor is drive-thrus. Existing establishments, such as the Starbucks on Del Monte, would become nonconforming; Garrison says pharmacies also increasingly rely on drive-thrus.

Anne Russell Rudolph of Marina Self Storage and the Reindollar Crest Commercial Center on Reindollar Avenue says she has been involved for years in the downtown specific plan update process. “I don’t consider where we are downtown,” she says.

Her concern is that the plan as proposed would have the effect of pushing out many existing, low-density businesses that would become nonconforming uses. “You can’t make anything bigger. The ultimate goal is for all of us to be gone,” Rudolph says.

Marina City Councilmember Brian McCarthy says the focus remains on the big picture. “What we’re trying to do is bring businesses along with us, and there’s going to be some growing pains in doing that,” he says. “Marina absolutely deserves a downtown that is enjoyable to spend time in.”

Exactly where the boundaries of that area are and how it is defined in terms of factors like density, setbacks and drive-thrus are the details that business and property owners like Garrison and Rudolph are worried about.

“We’re hoping the city will work with us,” Garrison says. “We’ve proposed the idea of an overlay district, so we wouldn’t have to conform to the plan until we were ready.”

According to the current version of the plan, legal nonconforming buildings would have a five-year grace period to come into compliance with design guidelines, if 25 percent or more of a structure is modified.

Comments can be submitted until 5pm on May 24 by emailing gpersicone@cityofmarina.org. View the plan at City Hall or online at cityofmarina.org/201/downtown-vitalization.

Clarification: The deadline to review the draft EIR was on May 24. The public can still provide feedback during the Marina Downtown Specific Plan hearings that will happen during the fall.