SAN CLEMENTE : Redevelopment OKd for Pier Bowl Area

The City Council cleared the way Wednesday for redevelopment of the 56-acre Pier Bowl district, which may include a controversial 123-room luxury hotel.

The vote to approve the project’s environmental impact report was 4 to 1, with Councilman Thomas Lorch dissenting.

The hotel on the Beachcomber Motel-Robison home property is one element of the Pier Bowl district plan, which includes the Municipal Pier and the historic Casa Romantica, and must pass its own environmental impact report before construction can start, said Jim Pechous, assistant city planner.

Other options for the Pier Bowl include expansion of public parking lots, development of a bluff-top area and beach walk, improvements to Linda Lane park, time-share vacation units, a specialty retail district, and a restaurant in the historic Casa Romantica.

Of all the factors examined in the environmental impact report, damage to air quality would be unavoidable, according to John Bridges of Cotton/Beland Associates Inc., which conducted the environmental impact report.

“Air isn’t important until you can’t breathe it,” said Mildred Pagelow, a San Clemente resident who has emphysema, told the council at the packed meeting. “It’s almost like the city wants to sell their daughter to the highest bidder,” she said.

Residents also loudly voiced concerns over the potential blocked views, increases in traffic, and destruction of historic buildings that might result if a hotel were built on the site of the 50-year-old Beachcomber Motel and 66-year-old Robison house.

Wayne Eggleston, another resident, said building a hotel would be a “disaster” and pointed to the bankruptcies of the Waterfront Hilton in Huntington Beach and the Surf & Sand in Laguna Beach.

But architect Bruce Jordan, who has helped draft a plan for the luxury hotel at the Beachcomber, said that worldwide hotel investors have deemed the proposed hotel “100% viable.”

He added that the hotel could generate an estimated $700,000 in tax revenues for the city.