RPV rejects use of parkland

By Nick Green
DAILY BREEZE

In a surprise move that ends five years of divisive debate, Rancho Palos Verdes officials have rejected using about 60 acres of public parkland for a proposed luxury resort and nine-hole golf course.

Tuesday's unanimous City Council decision also gives new impetus to an ambitious plan to preserve hundreds of acres of open space in the city. State agencies had balked at backing the idea because they disapproved of Rancho Palos Verdes profiting from converting native habitat into a golf course, while seeking grants to buy other parkland.

But on Wednesday officials with Brentwood-based Lowe Enterprises, which is developing the $200 million project, said the decision could jeopardize not only the resort, but a just-announced $10 million investment in nearby Ocean Trails Golf Course that's crucial to pulling the landslide-stricken project out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

“We'll assess both the Ocean Trails and Long Point properties as we move forward over the next couple of weeks,” project manager Mike Mohler said. “We think the action was premature.”

The council's action means the resort, with its more than 500 units of guest accommodations, will be restricted to using the 103-acre former Marineland theme park site. Virtually no city residents oppose the resort, just the proposed use of city land.

The council Tuesday had been scheduled to discuss the future of 32 proposed resort villas that Long Point officials said held the key to the project's economic viability.

But city officials have long talked about eliminating them to make room for putting more of the golf course on the former theme park tract.

Instead, the council went even further at the behest of recently appointed Councilman Peter Gardiner, who is up for election next month.

“We don't want to be perceived as opposing the development,” he said. “What we did is oppose the developer using city land. I assume everybody wants to see the development be fabulously successful — just do it on their property.”

Members of Save Our Coastlines II, which has made exactly that argument for the last two years, lauded the decision.

“I guess it was a surprise, but it was really an opportunity,” said spokeswoman Barbara Gleghorn, adding the group plans to hold a picnic on the parkland before disbanding for good. “We have to make sure the land stays as it is.”

Open space may get funding

Keith Lenard, executive director of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, said the council's timing was excellent.

Officials with the non-profit group are scheduled to meet with the director of the Department of Fish and Game on Monday in Sacramento to lobby for some of the estimated $30.1 million needed to buy more than 600 acres of open space near Portuguese Bend for a nature preserve.

“This has just removed the single largest obstacle that exists for public funding,” Lenard said. “The Department of Fish and Game, which controls access to state funds for this kind of effort, clearly linked funding for Portuguese Bend with conservation issues on City Hall property.”

Timing a surprise

While the council's decision was not unexpected — with Gardiner's recent appointment, a majority of council members were on record as generally opposing the use of city property for the project — the timing was.

Using city land for the resort was first proposed in 1996.

Over the years, as the debate heated up, Councilman Doug Stern, residents and even members of advisory commissions studying the project had unsuccessfully urged the council to tackle the policy question of whether the resort should use city land.

By not doing so, they argued, the developer held the upper hand in any negotiations.

A majority of the council repeatedly rejected the idea, saying they wanted more details and public input on the proposal.

“We've been peeling layers away,” Mayor Marilyn Lyon said Wednesday, adding that the teaming up of Long Point with Ocean Trails made her realize the resort's use of public land for a golf course was unnecessary.

“As you go through these steps, the real project emerges,” Lyon said.

Just hours before the council decision, Mohler had expressed doubt the council would contemplate major changes to the project with financing for hotels vanishing since Sept 11.

Indeed, the council was finally scheduled to begin public hearings Nov. 7 on the proposed resort. It's unclear now whether the first of those hearings will occur, Mohler said.

Three city advisory committees had spent months taking public testimony on the project, looking at everything from the project's finances to traffic concerns.

Council sends a message

In August, the Planning Commission had endorsed the project that is expected to generate as much as $50 million in city tax revenues, while eliminating 6 ½-acres of the golf course from the city parkland.

But now the council has redesigned the project in a far more drastic fashion in one fell swoop and sent a telling message both to the developer and state officials.

“The City Council is doing what it was elected to do,” Stern said.

“It's really not terribly profound,” he said. “We reached the conclusion that it doesn't work for our city, it doesn't work for us.”

Thursday, October 18, 2001