ELECTIONS HERMOSA BEACH : New Ballot, Same Old Question: What to Do With Biltmore Land? : Despite last year’s vote approving development of former hotel site, new proposal seeks to convert oceanfront lot into a park.

Hermosa Beach community activist Parker Herriott hopes 13 is his lucky number.

That’s how many times in the past 20 years the city’s voters have been asked to decide the future of an oceanfront lot that housed the former Biltmore Hotel before it was razed in 1965.

Herriott, who spearheads a movement to convert the city-owned lot into an oceanfront park, gathered the support of 15% of the city’s voters to place the latest initiative on Tuesday’s ballot.

Proposition D would repeal a measure passed just a year ago that designated the land for commercial and residential purposes. It also would designate the 0.82-acre property, which is set on The Strand between 14th and 15th streets, as open space.

Herriott, a 54-year-old actor, has already spent $2,000 of his own money attempting to persuade voters to wrestle the parcel away from those who want to develop the land.

“It’s the jewel of the coast,” Herriott said. “Why give up one of the most precious pieces of property?”

Tha answer, opponents of the measure say, is money.

Hermosa Beach Mayor Robert Essertier said a recent appraisal showed the financially strapped city could fetch as much as $5 million for the Biltmore site, enabling the city to do more to enhance the city’s other parks or buy more open space elsewhere.

Essertier said he favors other sites because they would be used by city residents more than the proposed park along The Strand, which he said attracts more tourists than residents.

The development of the site would not change the character of the city, Essertier said.

Rosamond Fogg, head of the Open Space People’s Action Committee, which opposes the measure, agrees. She favors allowing the Biltmore lot to be sold and developed, with the money used to buy parkland elsewhere.

“(Herriott’s) heart is in the right place,” Fogg said, “but he has a very simple approach to a complex problem.”

Herriott, who has logged 12 hours daily for the past month lobbying on behalf of he measure, is unfazed by the criticism. He believes the densely populated city cannot handle yet another development.

He disputes Fogg’s claim that other open space is available in the city for public parks. He also points out that the state Coastal Commission requires the city to use money from the sale of the site only for parks.

Herriott used those arguments last year in trying to win support for a similar ballot measure that would have turned the site into a park. But voters rejected that proposal in favor of a competing measure that called for development on the site.

The winning measure, which passed by a mere 40 votes, allows 70% of the site to be used for residential development and 30% of it for commercial purposes. Despite the measure’s passage, the city has been sitting on the land in the face of a lagging real estate market that saw the value of the property plummet from its previously estimated appraisal of $8 million.

The city’s delay in putting the site on the market pleases some nearby business owners, who want to see the property maintained as a park.

“It would be a nice little retreat,” said Harold Cohen, who has an unobstructed ocean view from his restaurant, La Playita. “I don’t care if (the land) is worth $100 billion. The environment comes first.”

Cohen’s neighbor, Jeff Pendleton, who owns a business that rents roller skates and bicycles, also wants the site preserved as open space. He believes his business will suffer if the site is developed because visitors on The Strand would no longer have a view of his shop.

“My business is 100% beach business,” Pendleton said, adding, “I think it’s dense enough around here.”

Such sentiments make Herriott enthusiastic about the initiative’s chances at the polls--despite his previous failures to win support for the proposal. He nevertheless promises to take up the fight again next year if necessary.

The issue has come before voters so many times, however, that residents and city officials have grown impatient with the battle.

“I sort of stopped paying attention to it,” said Christine Doolittle, who walks her two Akitas past the barren sand lot daily.

“This is something that has been on the ballot forever,” City Atty. Charles S. Vose added wearily. “This issue is not going to go away no matter what happens.”