Orange County Perspective : Public Has Big Stake in Monarch Beach

Japanese Firm’s Development Plans Are Breathtaking, but They Must Benefit All

Even as Japanese investment in the United States is cooling, Nippon Shinpan Co. Ltd, owner of Japan’s largest credit-card company, plans to develop prime Orange County real estate at Monarch Beach in Dana Point. The company plans two hotels of 300 and 100 rooms each, and it also wants to enlarge the already-magnificent Links at Monarch Beach golf course, as well as building about 240 new luxury homes.

If this development goes as planned, its arrival as a neighbor to the existing Ritz-Carlton hotel, considered one of the world’s best, could make this area even more of a prime resort in Southern California. Actually, the existence of the county’s spectacular Salt Creek Beach Park at the site right next to the Ritz makes a day’s visit to this area the closest thing many cooler-carrying families and surfers ever get to an episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” And that special feeling that the ordinary citizen enjoys from having access to breathtaking coastline should be preserved as all this new development comes under review.

The developer has plans to extend the public access system to connect the two hotels to the parking lots and trail systems of the park, and it wants to build a public beach house and restaurant fronting the Monarch Beach Resort. These plans should be reviewed with an eye toward ensuring that the public will benefit and does not lose anything it now has.

There already are concerns about the volume of traffic that would be generated by the plan to build homes instead of the large 800-room hotel that the previous developer, Qintex, had on the drawing boards. Moreover, Laguna Niguel, which has vowed to fight for control of Monarch Beach, and local organizations are pushing to require any developer to pay for $2.6 million in park improvements. That’s because Laguna Niguel lost public park space when Monarch Beach became part of Dana Point.

So while this may have potential to be an exciting development, the public has a great stake in the outcome.