Hunts Win Final OK for Resort on Lagoon

Culminating more than five years of planning and prodding, a state panel Thursday approved a $1-billion resort and housing project for the northern shore of Carlsbad’s scenic Batiquitos Lagoon.

In a series of 11-1 and 12-0 votes on planning documents, the California Coastal Commission gave the final go-ahead for the Pacific Rim Country Club and Resort being developed by the billionaire Hunt brothers of Dallas.

Work is scheduled to begin in June on the 1,000-acre project, which will include more than 2,800 residential units as well as a number of commercial structures by its completion in about a decade.

Developer Elated

Executives of Hunt Properties Inc., the development arm of the Hunt brothers’ empire, were elated by the commission’s decision, which came after more than three hours of public discussion and debate.

“We’re very relieved,” said Larry Clemens, the firm’s local representative. “This project has been a terrible burden for several years now, and it’s been building step by step. Now we get to the positive step: actual implementation.”

Although the massive project enjoyed widespread support among Carlsbad residents, it also attracted opposition from environmentalists concerned about its effects on the ecologically sensitive lagoon.

Concern About Silt

Dolores Welty, a member of Friends of Batiquitos Lagoon, said the commission should have delayed acting on the project until the completion of environmental reviews of restoration work planned for the silt-choked lagoon.

“I’m really disappointed that the commission did not see fit to defer their vote until we get an environmental review,” Welty said. “It’s fairly obvious that the Hunts’ plan is connected to the lagoon in terms of sediment control and maintenance.”

The Pacific Rim project will include a 254-room hotel; an 18-hole golf course; extensive banquet and meeting facilities; and a major athletic complex with 12 tennis courts, an Olympic-size pool and a health club. The hotel, golf course and about 1,500 residential units will be built in the first phase.

In giving its blessing to the project, the commission rejected a pair of key recommendations made by its staff.

One would have spared about 50 acres of ecologically sensitive hillside from the bulldozer’s blade. Hunt Properties said the recommendation would have endangered the hotel complex and meant a long delay in order to redesign parts of the project.

The commission sided with the developer, but only after Clemens and Carlsbad officials gave repeated assurances that steps would be taken to prevent silt from reaching the lagoon during grading. Nearly 4 million cubic yards of earth are expected to be shifted by bulldozers and earth movers during initial grading.

“I hesitate to send this project back for the developer to make major changes, but, on the other hand, I’m disturbed when the staff says it’s possible for the lagoon to be harmed,” Commissioner Charles Warren said at the meeting held in Marina del Rey.

Under the second staff recommendation, 74 custom homes would have been prohibited on a prime 34-acre parcel next to the lagoon. Although the staff argued that the land is an environmentally valuable plot better left untouched by development, Hunt Properties said the project already includes provisions for adequate open space and parkland. Moreover, Carlsbad officials questioned whether the city could maintain yet another park.

Hunt Properties has been pushing the proposal since it was unveiled in the early 1980s by oilmen Herbert and Nelson Bunker Hunt at a Texas-style barbecue in Carlsbad.

The huge project has run a bureaucratic gantlet. As first envisioned by the Hunts, who are best known for their reputed attempt to corner the international silver market in 1980, the development was to include 5,400 homes.

Residents and city officials complained that the project was too dense for the shores of Batiquitos. By last year, Hunt Properties had drafted a revised plan calling for construction of 4,300 homes.

That proposal, however, was blocked when the city approved a strict growth-management ordinance that reduced the number of dwellings allowed in the project even further--to the more than 2,800 the commission approved Thursday.

Hunt Properties became a focus of controversy in 1986 when it refused to donate more than 300 acres in Batiquitos Lagoon so a restoration project could go forward. That dispute was eventually defused, and the Hunts promised to turn over the land in exchange for approval to build.