Debate Rages Over Hotel Planned for Beach

A proposal to build a luxury hotel on Santa Monica’s public beach has divided this coastal city politically, producing more than 15 hours of City Council debate over three days with more than 100 speakers marching into City Hall to air their views.

City Council members were expected Wednesday night to debate language for a fall ballot measure so voters can decide whether the 160-room, $300-a-night hotel should be built.

The $42-million hotel, proposed by celebrity restaurateur Michael McCarty and hotly opposed by state Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), would be constructed on a parcel of beach owned by the state and managed by the city.

By late Wednesday night, city officials had not decided whether to give their final approval to the project.

Supporters of the upscale hotel say it would provide $1 million a year in revenue to help clean up the beach and provide, at no cost to the city, a community center, an arts and environment center and public showers and bathrooms.

They also say it would increase public access to the beach in part by replacing a private beach club, the Sand and Sea Club, that has occupied the Pacific Coast Highway site since the early 1960s.

On Tuesday night, testimony from speakers in the council chambers stretched into the early morning hours, forcing council members to postpone their decision until Wednesday. That hearing was a continuation of one that lasted six hours the previous week.

Opponents of the project say the city should not allow a $300-a-night hotel to be built on public land. They also claim that the project would add to traffic congestion and air pollution and would not provide true public access to the land.

Hayden, who said he fears that the project would transform the city into another Miami Beach or Waikiki, made a rare appearance before the City Council Tuesday night to plead his case and offer alternatives.

At times shouting with council members, Hayden said he could persuade the county Board of Supervisors to pass a bond measure to raise $3 million to clean all county beaches, including Santa Monica. He said he would sponsor a statewide initiative drive for the 1992 ballot to create a permanent fund to clean all state beaches.

Hayden was a co-sponsor of a provision in the state budget that would have allowed the Sand and Sea Club to remain standing until all permits are approved for any new development on the site. The governor, however, vetoed that provision on Tuesday.

The City Council also was expected to debate whether to include a rent-control measure on the fall ballot.

Landlords are pushing for placement of an initiative on the Nov. 6 city ballot that would allow rents on apartments vacated voluntarily to increase to market levels.

Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, a political group of tenants that controls the council majority, has been forced into proposing significant increases to counter the landlords’ proposal.

The council Wednesday night was considering the exact wording for a measure that would allow rents on voluntarily vacated apartments to increase a certain amount, and increases of at least 10% for units already at those levels. The increases would come in exchange for specific maintenance standards.