Proposal for Hotel Draws Opposition : Development: About 50 residents gather to protest plans to build a 123-room luxury resort near San Clemente Pier.

About 50 residents carrying signs reading “Save Our History” and “Don’t Ruin Our Town” marched near the beach Saturday to protest a proposal to build a luxury resort near the San Clemente Pier.

“People are really mad at this point,” said Wayne Eggleston, a member of the newly established Pier Bowl Community Assn., which organized the demonstration. “Elections are coming up, and we’re trying to make a public issue out of it.”

Last month, the City Council in a 3-2 vote endorsed preliminary guidelines that would allow for a 123-room hotel in place of the 47-year-old Beachcomber Motel and neighboring Robison home. The guidelines are part of a proposed general plan that will guide development and preservation in the 68-acre Pier Bowl, which was designed by city founder Ole Hanson in the late 1920s as the blueprint for his “Spanish Village by the Sea” vision.

“This is the heart and soul of San Clemente and we don’t want to see it destroyed by overdevelopment,” Eggleston said.

Supporters of the resort development, including the local Chamber of Commerce and the Radisson Co., which has drawn up a preliminary proposal, say it would generate much-needed tax dollars for the financially strapped city and revitalize the Pier Bowl area.

“I believe it is a shame that a few self-serving, negative people, without the complete facts, selfishly do not understand the fiscal crises this city is in,” said Robert Laidlaw, owner of the Beachcomber. “This type of revenue-generating project is the only viable economic solution for stability without further taxation of the approximately 42,000 local residents.”

But in meeting after meeting on the Pier Bowl plan, residents spoke against the development, saying it would ruin the city’s “small town” character, create “impossible” parking conditions and block public views of the ocean.

“The last thing people wanted was a 123-room hotel, and that’s what the City Council has essentially approved,” resident Jay Gummerman said.

“Let’s just stop the overdevelopment,” Councilman Thomas Lorch said. “The City Council isn’t listening.”

Many have called for outright preservation of the Beachcomber and Robison home, while others have called for a smaller hotel development. Laidlaw contends that it would take at least 123 rooms to make the hotel project economically feasible.