Group Seeks to Reverse Decision Approving Hotel : Peninsula: Save Our Coastline 2000 asks City Council to overturn Planning Commission on development plan for former Marineland site.

A group fighting the planned development of a 450-room hotel complex on the former site of Marineland has asked the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council to overturn the Planning Commission’s recent approval of the project.

Raising a series of administrative and environmental challenges to the project, Save Our Coastline 2000 this week charged that the proposed hotel development would be inconsistent with the city’s General Plan and lead to troubling noise and other environmental problems for the peninsula.

“All we are saying is, ‘Dammit, follow your General Plan,” said Gar Goodson, chairman of the 160-member group formed in response to the project.

The appeal will force a council hearing on the project. If unsuccessful before the council, the group has promised appeals to the California Coastal Commission and the Superior Court.

City Manager Paul Bussey said Wednesday that the group’s arguments against the project have already been addressed by planning officials, including the commission, and the project “is consistent with the General Plan.”

City officials had considered setting the council hearing for as early as June 4, though the project’s developer has asked for a hearing no sooner than June 18 to have additional time to prepare his case, said Senior Planner Carolynn Petru.

James Monaghan, the developer, said the extension of time also was requested because Councilman Robert Ryan is on vacation and the company officials want all five council members present for the hearing.

The appeal, Monaghan added, was expected. “We don’t think it holds much water . . . the proof of the pudding is that no one else” is raising the questions raised by the group, he said.

Three weeks ago, the Planning Commission voted 4 to 1 to allow the Arizona developer to build a 390-room hotel, and another 50 rooms or suites in smaller buildings, on the 100-acre bluff top where the former aquatic park operated for decades. Marineland closed four years ago.

The development approved by commissioners also permits Monaghan to double the size of an existing five-room hotel on the property, add a nine-hole golf course, and build a 30,000-square-foot conference center and 20,000-square-foot spa/fitness center on the site.

In approving the plan, commissioners moved the long-debated hotel development a step closer to reality, sending the project to the council, where approval is expected.

The appeal, filed two days before a city deadline for challenging the Planning Commission action, was expected and repeats Save Our Coastline’s longstanding contention that approval of the development flies in the face of environmental tranquility and land-use laws.

Specifically, the group said, the proposed hotel complex would violate the spirit and intent of the city’s General Plan, which discourages major commercial development along the coastline due to “the terrain and environmental characteristics of the city.”

In addition, the group’s appeal claims that the environmental impact report on the project inadequately addresses its potential consequences for the city.

“Of particular concern is the current water shortage in California,” the appeal said, arguing that the drought, which has drawn recent widespread attention, is not considered in the report.

“Similarly, while the R.P.V. General Plan devotes 10 pages to the hazards of excessive noise on peninsula residents,” the appeal says, “planners have scheduled daily helicopter flights in an out of the hotel grounds.”

City Manager Bussey rejected the group’s arguments.

The city’s “position has been that the project is consistent with the General Plan,” Bussey said, adding that the plan--as its name suggests--is a general guide to development in the community.

Furthermore, Bussey said, the plan says that industrial and major commercial development along the coastline should be discouraged, not prohibited, by the city. And that, Bussey said, is a crucial distinction in reviewing the hotel project since it is planned for lands used for years in a major commercial development--Marineland.

“Had the General Plan intended to prohibit commercial development along the coast, it would have said that,” Bussey said. “It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t an oversight” that the General Plan was not worded in that fashion, he said.

Responding to the other challenges raised by opponents of the project, Bussey noted that the former Marineland site already includes a helipad and that its use has been adequately studied by city planners.

Likewise, Bussey said, city officials have addressed the issue of the drought and water supplies by requiring the developer, at the time building permits are sought for the project, to obtain a letter from the city’s water supplier stipulating that it will supply water for the project. And with that period two or three years away, Bussey said, there is no way of predicting today how the region’s water supplies will increase or fall in the coming years.

Excerpt from Rancho Palos Verdes’ General Plan:

The city shall discourage industrial and major commercial activities due to the terrain and environmental characteristics of the city. Commercial development shall be carefully and strictly controlled, and limited to consideration of convenience or neighborhood service facilities.

The city shall encourage the development of institutional facilities to serve the political, social, and cultural needs of its citizens.

The city shall endeavor to provide, develop, and maintain recreational facilities and programs of various types to provide a variety of activities for persons of all age groups and in all areas of the community.