Put Hotel Issue Before Voters, Council Urged
As a showdown vote approaches in the City Council, a citizens’ group opposed to building a 400-room Sheraton hotel at the Torrey Pines Golf Course has asked that the issue be put on the November ballot.
The attorney for a group called Friends of Torrey Pines has warned that the hotel will flood the already-crowded course with more golfers, greatly increase traffic on North Torrey Pines Road, and create a “serious risk of injury and loss of life” because it is beneath the flight pattern for Miramar Naval Air Station.
“The people of San Diego should be allowed to decide this important issue of public safety and public liability by way of a ballot proposition,” said attorney Michael B. Poynor in a letter to Mayor Maureen O’Connor and other members of the council.
Craig D. Beam, attorney for Sheraton Corp., called Poynor’s letter another attempt at misinformation by the Friends of Torrey Pines and its founder, developer Jerry Simms. The group has taken full-page newspaper advertisements and sent out mailers to citizens from Bird Rock to Del Mar.
Beam said that Sheraton and the city have agreed not to give preferential treatment to Sheraton guests at the golf course and noted that the San Diego Assn. of Governments has endorsed the project as safe. He predicted that hotels being built in the nearby Golden Triangle will probably produce more golfers than the Sheraton.
‘Designed to Delay’
“This is not a serious proposal,” Beam said. “It is a proposal designed to delay the project to death.” The city has until July 1 to exercise an option to buy out for $1.8 million the lease held by Wansa Enterprises for operation of the driving range, the prospective site of the hotel.
The council is set to vote June 22 on whether to approve the Sheraton project. Paul Downey, the mayor’s press secretary, said the mayor plans a special session of the council’s Rules Committee on June 24 to consider the request for a ballot measure, if the hotel is approved.
The deadline for the council to place an issue on the ballot is July 12. If the council declines to put the Torrey Pines measure on the ballot, it is too late to mount a petition drive, as the qualifying deadline for such petitions has passed.
It is unclear how many supporters the Sheraton project has on the council. Only three of the nine members were on the council when it tentatively approved the project in 1982; among the new members are O’Connor and Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, whose district includes Torrey Pines.
Downey indicated Thursday that the mayor is leaning against the project.
“Opposing it would be consistent with her opposition to expansion of the Torrey Pines Inn,” Downey said. “She has the same concerns about safety with the Sheraton project.”
Wolfsheimer’s chief of staff, Joann Johnson, said her boss is unsure how she will vote but is troubled by the planning process, where significant actions such as submitting the project to Sandag, deciding to buy out Wansa, and selecting Wansa’s replacement were taken even before council approved the project. Wansa has already been paid $200,000 and trees on the driving range have been cut down.
Possible Danger
The city Planning Commission on April 23 voted 4-2 to oppose the project on grounds of possible danger posed by the average 120 Navy aircraft that fly over the site each day. The Navy has opposed the project.
The request by Friends of Torrey Pines marks the second time in five months that a citizens’ group has asked the council to let the public decide whether land owned by the city for public recreation should be privately developed.
Early this year the council rejected a bid by Mission Beach residents to block construction of a complex of shops and restaurants at Belmont Park until a public vote could be taken. Because of a successful petition drive, the Belmont Park issue will appear on the November ballot, but it has been rendered meaningless by the fact that construction is under way.
