Economy Hostile to Hotel Proposal

The Planning Commission and City Council of Rancho Palos Verdes are now seriously considering the construction of a 400- to 500-room hotel at Long Point, where Marineland once stood. To some, this may seem to be a terrific idea, but the financial and economic news on hotels these days is not promising.

The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 21, says in a front-page report that the American hotel industry “has been living on the edge of disaster” since 1986 because of overbuilding.

The Journal says that between 1980 and 1989 almost a million hotel rooms were added across the country and that building has continued “despite repeated warnings from economists.” According to the Journal, 314 hotel properties have failed this year.

The Journal notes that Muncie, Indiana, tried to revive its downtown by investing $9 million in a new hotel and convention center. “Today, two years after completion,” the Journal says, “the hotel is in Chapter 11.”

R.P.V. city fathers and mothers must assess very carefully the wisdom and economic future of the planned hotel at Long Point. The gross impact of a huge hotel complex on our fragile peninsula--with a great traffic invasion on already crowded highways, helicopter arrivals and departures, golf and tennis complexes--will be severe. And what if it goes belly-up in two or three years?

Further, the Rancho Palos Verdes General Plan and Coastal Specific Plan categorically prohibit large commercial activities, like 500-room hotels, anywhere in R.P.V. City officials know of this prohibition--have known about it for years--but they prefer to turn their heads. But now, in the face of a dim economic future and a deepening recession, it may be time to reconsider.

GAR GOODSON

Palos Verdes Estates