Effort to Block Hotel at Torrey Pines Site Fails

A San Diego developer who has mounted a well-financed campaign against construction of a 400-room hotel on the city-owned Torrey Pines Golf Course met defeat Friday before the San Diego Assn. of Governments.

The Sandag board, which approved the project in 1981, refused to reopen the issue Friday after Sandag attorney Debra Greenfield ruled that the current directors had no legal right to reopen the issue or to rescind the earlier board action.

The hotel proposed by Sheraton Corp. on land now used as a golf driving range is expected to yield about $1 million a year to the city in lease revenues.

Sandag, a regional planning group composed of elected city and county officials, was asked last month by Capt. W. R. Mullins, Miramar Naval Air Station commander, to hold public hearings on the hotel project because of revised plans that added “greatly expanded conference/convention facilities” at the hotel.

Renewed Opposition

The site, which lies within the Miramar NAS flight plan, could be occupied by more than 3,000 people at any time, including hotel guests and convention attendees, Mullins said in renewing the Navy’s continued opposition to the proposed hotel.

However, Sheraton spokesmen said there had been no major changes in the hotel plans since modifications made in 1981 to satisfy Sandag officials’ concerns.

Jerry Simms, founder of Friends of Torrey Pines, purchased a full-page advertisement in local newspapers urging a new public hearing by Sandag on the hotel project and listing dozens of diverse groups and individuals. Among opponents were La Jolla civic groups, Navy officials, golfing groups, environmental and planning agencies, and the City of Del Mar.

‘Substantial Changes’

Michael Poyner, attorney for Simms’ opposition group, argued before Sandag directors Friday that “substantial changes” had been made since the 1981 approval of the project was granted because the site area had been reduced from an original 15-acre size to 11.3 acres, but the board members disagreed and refused to reopen the issue.

Poyner argued that the Sandag board had a responsibility to the public to reopen the controversial issue of placing a major hotel within a potential crash zone.

“This is the highest density project ever proposed for the crash zone,” Poyner said in a letter to Sandag board chairman Ernie Cowan, an Escondido councilman. “There will probably be 2,000 to 3,000 people on the site per day . . . subjected to 100 to 120 Navy F-14 overhead flights per day for the 50-year life of the project.”

If the Sandag board, sitting as a regional airport land-use commission, had reviewed and disapproved Sheraton Torrey Pines project, the San Diego City Council, which is scheduled to act on the project June 22, could override the Sandag action by the two-thirds vote of the nine members.