Hayden Joins Fight to Halt Beach Hotel : Santa Monica: The assemblyman wants to put the project at the Sand and Sea Club site to a vote. The developer is downplaying Hayden’s role.

Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) on Tuesday stepped into the fray over a proposed luxury beach hotel in Santa Monica, declaring his “full support--personal and political” for residents groups fighting to stop the project.

“This proposed hotel is another step toward turning Santa Monica into a congested Miami or Waikiki,” said Hayden, speaking at a press conference in Palisades Park above the proposed site. “It’s a project that should not have come this far.”

The project, planned for the site now leased by the private Sand and Sea Club, would include a 160-room hotel, a 200-seat cafe and a three-story community center. A public hearing on the project will be held Tuesday before the Santa Monica City Council.

Although the council could decide to approve or reject the project this month, the developer, restaurateur Michael McCarty, last week requested that approval of the project be tied to one of two competing beachfront development initiatives scheduled for the November ballot.

Hayden said he also supports placing the fate of the hotel and community center in the hands of voters, adding that he would campaign to have the project defeated.

Hayden’s announcement marks an escalation in the fight over the project, which pits Sand and Sea Club members, slow-growth advocates and environmentalists against McCarty and his allies, including the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, which could receive a substantial portion of the hotel’s occupancy tax, neighborhood groups that would use the proposed community center and city officials, who say the city needs the hotel’s $1-million annual rent.

McCarty downplayed Hayden’s involvement, saying the assemblyman is merely doing the bidding of Sand and Sea Club owner and political supporter Doug Badt, whose club would be displaced by the project.

“It’s ludicrous and sad that someone like Tom Hayden is protecting the rights of this private, luxury club,” said McCarty, who has also supported Hayden in the past.

The club has occupied the site at 415 Pacific Coast Highway, which is owned by the state and managed by the city, since the early ‘60s. It leases the property from the city for $250,000 a year on a month-to-month basis, said Assistant City Manager Lynne Barrette.

Hayden, however, said he is not committed to the club remaining on the site and would like to see its facilities opened to the public.

Community activists fighting the project said the issue is not the club but the traffic, pollution and sewage that would be generated by the proposed hotel and the question of whether public park lands should be used for private development.

“Santa Monica already has 4,000 hotel rooms; should we dedicate our children’s park space for more hotel development?” asked Sharon Gilpin, a leader of Save Our Beach, the group that organized the press conference.

Gilpin’s group also found fault with the project’s environmental studies.

Don Michael, a Malibu geologist hired by Save Our Beach to review the environmental impact report, said the project’s proposed community center will straddle a branch of the Santa Monica Fault, which he said most geologists agree is active and prone to earthquakes.

But more important, Michael said, his calculations show that the proposed two-level, underground parking structure would block the flow of underground water to the sea. The resulting pressure would make the structure almost impossible to build and could cause the ground-water level behind the hotel to rise and trigger landslides at the bluff overlooking Pacific Coast Highway, he said.

McCarty dismissed the charges as ridiculous.

“What are we, stupid?” he said. “We’re building a multimillion-dollar project here, we’re not going to build something that’s going to collapse or is not environmentally sound.”

McCarty said his opponents are “running from the truth,” and that most Santa Monica residents support his hotel and especially the proposed community center, which will feature public changing rooms and showers, a children’s park and an arts and environmental center.

Tuesday’s hearing will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the council chambers.