Benicia City Council has agreed to expand its contract for the development of the Urban Waterfront Restoration Plan for the First Street Green and surrounding marshland.

The change, an increase to $181,169, will cover costs of more meetings and additional mitigation.

A state Coastal Conservancy grant of $140,000 and an additional $20,000 plus city employee staff time contributed by Benicia financed the original master plan contract.

But the city won’t be paying the additional costs, Benicia Parks and Community Services Director Mike Dotson wrote the Council in a report delivered prior to its March 18 meeting, when the change was approved.

Instead, the Coastal Conservancy has agreed to provide additional money for the project, up to $140,000, with Benicia providing an additional $20,000 plus staff time.

The Council originally approved a contract with Urban Waterfront Restoration Plan with PlaceWorks and Environmental Collaborative in October 2012, after the city was awarded the original grant in December 2011.

Afterward, a community advisory panel was appointed to provide additional comments on the project and help with public meetings and a workshop.

Ideas suggested during those sessions led to the proposal of three concepts that received more review until the Council approved a draft of a preferred alternative.

Subsequently, the consultants and city staff members met with several of the regulatory agencies from which permits are needed to proceed with the project, to seek those agencies’ initial comments and suggestions on likely mitigation requirements.

Among those agencies are the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

After getting initial comments from those agencies and to address possible impacts to certain wetland areas, the consultant agreed to create a conceptual graphic to identify the project’s elements, modify the project matrix and revise the conceptual cost estimate, Dotson wrote the Council.

That graphic also will be designed in hopes of keeping all the elements currently included in the preferred alternative, he wrote.

The consultant will calculate and map potential mitigation areas based on the conversations with the regulatory agencies. They also will describe how biological impacts would be mitigated, he wrote.

The Council approved this item without comment as part of its consent agenda.

By the same unanimous vote, the panel also awarded a $68,800 contract to Spiess Construction Company of Santa Maria to replace the city water treatment plant’s filter slide gate.

The company wasn’t the lowest bidder; however, interim Public Works Director Steve Salomon wrote the Council that the $48,750 bid submitted by GSE Construction Company of Livermore didn’t list the manufacturers of the equipment it would use, contrary to the city’s specifications.

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