Residents Worry About Added Traffic : Plans Renewed for Beach Restaurants

Los Angeles County officials, rebuffed in earlier attempts to build two beach restaurants on Pacific Coast Highway in the Pacific Palisades area, have revived their efforts.

And the city of Los Angeles is moving forward with plans to reopen a lounge and dining spot nearby. A restaurant row on public property is taking shape, despite continued opposition from homeowners.

As many as five more restaurants could open along Pacific Coast Highway in the next two years if current plans materialize. All of them would be located on public land leased to private entrepreneurs, under arrangements similar to that of Gladstone’s 4 Fish, a 7,250-square-foot restaurant on county-managed, state-owned land on Pacific Coast Highway at Sunset Boulevard.

Sorely Needed Cash

The county, city and state hope the additional ventures will provide another form of recreation at the shore and some sorely needed cash to maintain public beaches and parks.

But residents’ groups have expressed concern that a spate of restaurants will add traffic congestion to the already clogged highway.

The county’s plans for a 7,500-square-foot restaurant with 4,500 square feet of dining space, at the highway’s intersection with Topanga Canyon Boulevard, will be reconsidered by the state Park and Recreation Commission at a meeting Wednesday in Marina del Rey.

In November, the commission rejected the county’s request for a restaurant there, taking note of criticism from Pacific Palisades and Malibu civic organizations.

However, Commissioner Raymond J. Nesbit later decided to raise the issue again, saying the county needs to generate beach income. The county’s yearly beach management deficit is more than $7 million.

“It is fairly imperative to bring in some revenue,” Nesbit said in an interview. “And there’s somebody to object to anything we do.”

Nesbit’s action “came as a surprise to us,” said Larry Charness, chief of planning for the county Department of Beaches and Harbors.

The size of the restaurant “could be scaled back somewhat” to gain acceptance, Charness said. “They were very quick to turn it down last time, and we might be able to make changes.”

The county also plans to seek approval for another restaurant on the beach across from Potrero Canyon, Charness said. That restaurant, with 5,000 square feet of dining space and 5,000 square feet of additional concessions, would substitute for an earlier county plan to place a similar facility at Pacific Coast Highway and Temescal Canyon Road.

The state park commission had suggested that the restaurant site be moved to a beach maintenance yard about 200 yards north of the Temescal intersection.

However, the approved location is not practical because “we really didn’t want to disrupt the maintenance operation there,” Charness said. Rather than abandon the restaurant, the county will amend its plan and hold new public workshops on the Potrero site, Charness said.

Meanwhile, the city of Los Angeles has reached an agreement with the operator of an Olvera Street restaurant to renovate and reopen the dining facilities at the Sunspot motel, across Pacific Coast Highway at Potrero Canyon.

Andrew Camacho, of El Paseo restaurant, will spend at least $250,000 to improve the Sunspot lounge and restaurant, which have been closed for 12 years, said Keith H. Fitzgerald, an administrative assistant with the city’s Recreation and Parks Department.

Camacho has a three-year contract, with an optional three-year extension, which requires a yearly payment to the city of $75,000 or 6% of the operation’s gross, whichever is greater, Fitzgerald said.

The money would go toward development of the planned Potrero Canyon Park that would stretch from the Palisades to the sea.

Trying to Move Quickly

“We do anticipate that there will be some operation there during the summer,” Fitzgerald said. “We’re trying to move as quickly as possible.”

The 14-room motel either will be razed or relocated in mid-summer, Fitzgerald said. Eventually, the city expects to negotiate a 20-year contract with an entrepreneur who would commit at least $3 million to a new complex. That project would have to receive approval from the City Council.

Ronald Dean, president of the Pacific Palisades Residents Assn., said his group continues to oppose the restaurants.

He said he was particularly dismayed by the latest developments in the county’s plans.

“I thought these were settled,” he said. “They have this government bureaucracy that has a life unto itself.”

Trading Problems

The suggested relocation from Temescal to Potrero, he said, “changes the facts but not the seriousness. You’re just trading one set of problems for another. It’s still on the coast highway; it’s still blocking the view.”

And, he said, “the thing that’s never really been addressed by any of these plans is the traffic impact. They say they’ll minimize it. That’s like minimizing death, hard to do.”

Though Fitzgerald and Charness said they hope that a traffic signal can be installed at Potrero Canyon, an official from the state Department of Transportation said “the location . . . probably wouldn’t be eligible.”

But, he added, “all of the restaurants are spread out a bit and there should not be any adverse impact unless there’s a terrific demand during rush hour.”

A third public landlord--the state--expects to receive rent from a restaurant at Topanga State Beach that will replace the Jetty, which was destroyed by fire in 1984.

Grace Restaurant Co., which has a 20-year contract for the new facility, has begun a study of traffic impacts, said Todd Neiger, concessions program manager for the state Department of Parks and Recreation.

The state did not receive any bids on a project to renovate and run the decaying Malibu Pier, which would have included a restaurant in a vacant building at the end of the structure.