Coast Panel Approves Monarch Beach Resort : Development: $500-million Dana Point complex to feature 400-room luxury hotel, homes and public amenities.

Clearing the way for the biggest resort yet along coastal Orange County, the California Coastal Commission gave unanimous approval Tuesday to the planned Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point.

Often likened to Monterey Peninsula’s famed Pebble Beach, the 225-acre Monarch Beach Resort will be a golf-residential-hotel complex. The owner is the Japanese credit card giant Nippon Shinpan Ltd. of Tokyo, which announced that it would proceed immediately to obtain construction financing, though no date was given for groundbreaking.

A 400-room luxury hotel will be the $500-million resort’s centerpiece, surrounded by a gated, luxury residential development and the Links at Monarch Beach, an existing golf course.

The nine-member commission, meeting in Huntington Beach, approved the major part of the resort plan quickly and with little comment. Only a beach house and restaurant, planned for a site near Salt Creek Beach Park, failed to win support. The developer promised to return with a new design for this building, which is the lone structure planned for the ocean side of Coast Highway.

In giving its approval, the commission stipulated that 25% of the 238 residences in the project must be made to sell at “affordable prices.”

When completed, Monarch Beach Resort will join Dana Point’s two other premium hotels, the nearby Ritz-Carlton hotel and the Dana Point Resort. City officials, who depend on hotel taxes for one-third of Dana Point’s $11-million annual budget, foresee another $2.26 million in annual revenue once the resort opens.

Mayor Pro Tem Judy Curreri hailed the project Tuesday, calling its final design the product of “intense public scrutiny,” including 13 public hearings. The city gave final approval to the project in December.

“In the 18 years I have lived in town, I have never seen the various factions of the community come together like this,” said Curreri, adding that Dana Point citizens do not mind a development of this caliber along their coast. “We’re appreciative of our ocean setting. We’re willing to share that with the rest of California.”

Two Dana Point residents and a businessman who operates a restaurant at Salt Creek Beach Park spoke against the project.

Despite the city’s approval, questions of when and if the resort will be built have lingered. Throughout Monarch Beach Resort’s two-year planning process, doubters have scoffed at the idea that a resort of this magnitude would be built in such lean economic times.

But Phillip Schwartze, a spokesman for Nippon Shinpan, said the company plans to move ahead with the project. “Our next step is to obtain financing, and then come to the city with final drawings,” Schwartze said.

The resort plan is a scaled-down version of earlier attempts to develop the land, which has been owned by several companies. The first plan surfaced in the early 1970s, and by the mid-1980s called for 1,100 hotel rooms and 300,000 square feet of commercial space. The current version omits the commercial portion and calls for 238 homes and condominiums, a 27-acre city park and a five-acre expansion of the Links at Monarch Beach, which will include a clubhouse.

It was this smaller version of the project that won the backing of members of the surrounding Monarch Beach community, a swank section of town, when it was first introduced to the community in 1991. Several members showed up Tuesday in Huntington Beach city hall to express those feelings to the commission.

“I am fully in support of this project,” said Monarch Beach resident Jeff Golden. “It’s fantastic. It’s what we want and what our community is looking for.”

But what the Monarch Beach community is not looking for, and has persistently lobbied against, is the inclusion of on-site affordable housing at the resort.

Nevertheless, the commission stipulated that 25% of the residential units must be affordable, a part of the project that the developer has not yet addressed. The commission did not define what would be affordable pricing in this neighborhood where million-dollar homes are common.

“I’d like to make it clear that I would be very, very hesitant to amend the affordable housing portion,” Commissioner Madelyn Glickfeld said. “The applicant has paid a whole lot of money to the public benefit, specifically to parks and recreation, but I don’t think there are very many things that will substitute for affordable housing.”

Nippon Shinpan and its local subsidiary, Monarch Bay Resort Inc., did agree with the Dana Point City Council to subsidize rents for hundreds of workers expected to be lured by the resort. Although the details have not been worked out, the company said it would provide a total of $210,000 a year in rent subsidies to employees who are paid less than $20,000 annually.

The residents who opposed the project said the subsidies would do little to offset the high cost of housing for the low-wage service workers at the resort.

Among the attributes of the project cited by the commission are its many hiking and biking trails, vista points, botanical gardens and tramways, all designed to give public access to various parts of the resort and the beach. These amenities were noted by the commission staff, which recommended the project’s approval.

“We feel this is a project that is well-designed,” said Chuck Damm, a staff member. “There are very few (proposals) that produce public amenities such as are part of this project.”

Even the Links at Monarch Beach, which will be remodeled to lure professional tournaments, must continue to serve the public, the commission staff noted. A total of 50% of all the golf starting times must be reserved for the public, a statistic the commission promised to monitor.

Monarch Beach Resort

* $500 million luxury project on 225 acres

* Owned by Japanese credit-card giant Nippon Shinpan Co. Ltd.

* Tax revenue to Dana Point of $2.26 million a year

* 400 hotel rooms

* 238 homes and condominiums

* Resort will create a 27-acre park and improve a city golf course

* Resort will pay $210,000 annually in rent subsidies to workers earning less than $20,000 a year.

Source: California Coastal Commission, Dana Point City Council