Council OKs 2nd Biltmore Site Proposal for Fall Ballot

A citizens initiative aimed at preserving the vacant Biltmore Hotel site for open space will face a competing proposal when the longstanding issue appears on the November ballot.

Under the competing proposal, which the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to add to the ballot, about two-thirds of the tiny waterfront parcel would be reserved for an “urban park plaza” and the rest would be used for commercial development.

The citizens initiative, which would dedicate the entire 0.84-acre Biltmore site as a public park, qualified last month for the November ballot.

The mixed-use plan was drafted by an advisory committee in March as a compromise between open-space advocates and others--including most members of the council--who want to sell at least part of the city-owned parcel to raise money for other community projects.

Create Public Park

The panel recommended that Beach Drive be vacated and combined with the oceanfront portion of the Biltmore site between 14th and 15th streets to create a public park. Five lots on the east side of Beach Drive would be sold for commercial uses, such as a restaurant or bar, but hotel or motel developments would be prohibited.

City officials said the market value of the five lots has not been determined. The Planning Commission will fine-tune the advisory panel’s mixed-use proposal before it is placed on the ballot.

Community activist Parker Herriott, who spent months gathering signatures for the open-space initiative, condemned the council’s competing measure.

“It’s a blatant attempt to undermine my petition by splitting the vote,” he said Wednesday.

Herriott said his ballot measure was intended as a first-ever “opportunity for the people of Hermosa Beach to settle, once and for all,” the issue of whether the Biltmore site should be preserved entirely for public park uses.

Repeal Specific Plan

His measure, he said, also would repeal the city’s specific plan for the area, which permits developers to construct a 260-room hotel on the site--a plan that has been frustrated five times in a series of public votes and legal actions since 1984.

Mayor June Williams agreed that the council’s measure “will take some votes away from Parker’s initiative.” But she said the competing measure also represents a substantial sentiment in the community, and the council felt that it should be offered to voters as an alternative.

A major priority for the council-appointed advisory committee, she said, was to raise money to help pay for the railroad right of way that the city agreed to buy from the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. for $7.5 million.

Some proponents, such as Councilman Roger Creighton, say that 19-acre parcel near the center of the city offers a much larger space for public use than the Biltmore site.

If both initiatives fail at the polls, Williams said, she would “lean toward using the Biltmore site for more public parking, instead of restaurants.”

“We don’t need more commercial development to attract more people who can’t find a place to park,” she said. “Our city can’t handle any more traffic.”

Councilman Chuck Sheldon said Herriott is “promoting open space, but that’s a long way from a park. The real juice and merit of the (advisory) committee’s recommendation is that it provides the money needed to take two-thirds of that land and develop it into a beautiful, landscaped park.”

To win in November, a ballot measure must receive at least 50% plus one of the votes cast, said City Clerk Kathy Midstokke. If both measures receive a majority, then the one with the highest number of votes will prevail, she said.

Or the voters could reject both, just as they turned down three other Biltmore proposals a year ago and a number of others in the past two decades. In that case, the governing body could continue its search for a community consensus or make its own decision on what to do with the Biltmore site.