Hermosa Votes to Put Housing on Beach Site

After nine attempts to get voters to decide the fate of Hermosa Beach’s most notorious vacant lot, the City Council has taken matters into its own hands with a preliminary vote to allow the construction of beachfront housing where the old Biltmore Hotel used to stand.

The decision--passed 3 to 2 Tuesday, with formal approval due later this month--was intended to settle once and for all a question that has hounded the city for 25 years.

But old arguments die hard.

The vote prompted an immediate threat by local activist Parker Herriott to launch a recall drive against the council members supporting the development proposal. The plan could result in as many as 16 condominiums on the weed-strewn lot. Herriott believes the property should become a park.

“You’re a bunch of hypocrites,” Herriott told council members, accusing them of “trying to take city-owned property away from the people.”

But the council majority--Mayor Roger Creighton, Councilwoman Kathleen Midstokke and Councilman Robert Essertier--noted that the city’s voters have considered nine site plans in as many years and have rejected them all--Herriott’s included.

“If anything has been debated to death in this town, it’s the Biltmore site,” Midstokke said.

Added Essertier, “If there’s a mandate from the people, it’s that a decision of some sort be made once and for all.”

Essertier and Midstokke campaigned last year in favor of zoning the property for residential use, selling it and using the money to buy parkland elsewhere in Hermosa Beach.

Last night’s vote was the first step in achieving that goal. But the plan still must clear the California Coastal Commission. And the plan’s advocates conceded that winning commission approval may be difficult.

Less than an acre in size, the dusty little lot that fronts the Strand has been generating controversy almost since it became vacant in 1965. Having torn down the beachfront hotel that once stood on the land, the community has been unable to agree on what to erect in its place.

Neither houses nor hotels nor boutiques nor parkland have pleased enough of the people to be voted in, and the potential political backlash has frightened several administrations away from deciding the matter themselves.

Consequently, the lot lies empty, strewn with litter and animal waste. “The world’s biggest cat box,” one resident has dubbed the place.

But in December, shortly after her election, Midstokke began pushing for a conclusion to the Biltmore debate.

“It is now time for the City Council to make some policy decisions regarding the management of this resource in the best interests of the citizens of Hermosa Beach,” Midstokke wrote in a memo to the council. “To wait for another initiative . . . would be allowing an abuse of the initiative process to successfully intimidate elected officials into not making policy decisions.”

Essertier on Tuesday said the council vote would “turn the Biltmore site into cash” that the city could use “to buy a whole lot more open space around town.” Consultants have estimated that the city could net more than $8 million if it were sold to residential developers. But Herriott and his backers argued that Midstokke’s plan will worsen congestion in the already cramped city and squander one of the city’s best views.

“Residential development will send a message that this council believes we need to increase density for the benefit of a few wealthy people on the Strand,” said ex-Mayor June Williams, who was voted out of office last year.

Councilman Albert Wiemans supported that view, saying the site “is probably the most important piece of real estate in the city (because) . . . it strikes at the heart of almost every inhabitant.” He voted against the development plan for the site.

Open space advocates also warned that the Coastal Commission may reject a plan to put houses on the property, since it would restrict access to the beach.

But the council majority discounted that, arguing that the commission might be swayed by their plan to sacrifice less than an acre of beachfront open space for the opportunity to purchase much more parkland elsewhere in the city.

That argument was lost on Herriott, who promised to overturn Tuesday’s decision with a new ballot measure and oust not only the council majority but a fourth councilman as well.

Besides Midstokke, Creighton and Essertier, he said, he will seek the recall of Councilman Chuck Sheldon, a booster of commercial development who Herriott said should be recalled “just on general principals.”

Sheldon voted against residential zoning because he believes the lot should become part of a commercial strip.