Coast Panel OKs High-Rise Redevelopment of Marina

Under pressure from Los Angeles County officials and lobbyists for developers, a sharply divided California Coastal Commission on Wednesday approved a sweeping plan to intensively redevelop Marina del Rey into a high-rise community on the water.

Rejecting the comments of marina-area residents and environmental groups and the recommendations of its own staff, the commission voted 8 to 3 to certify the county’s plan to allow high-rise buildings along the edge of the harbor and mid-rise buildings along the water.

Opponents warned that the land-use plan to guide future development will turn the marina into “Century City by the Sea.”

But county representatives pressed hard to win approval for the complex plan to dramatically increase the amount of residential and commercial construction around the world’s largest man-made small-craft harbor.

Led by representatives of Supervisors Deane Dana and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, a series of county officials and representatives of marina developers told the commission that approval of the plan was crucial to encourage redevelopment of the aging marina.

“It is only by permitting this modest level of development that we can revitalize our 30-year-old urban waterfront,” Dana said in a letter to commissioners.

Dana noted that the plan has been in preparation for five years. “I am eager to see its approval by the Coastal Commission,” he wrote.

The entire marina is publicly owned and is leased by the county to private developers who build and operate the harbor’s apartments, hotels, boat slips, restaurants, shops and offices.

Stan Wisniewski, director of the county Department of Beaches and Harbors, stressed that additional revenue from new development is needed to help with marina refurbishing. He told commissioners that Los Angeles County faces “a fiscal crisis second only to Orange County’s” and that restoration funds must come from the marina.

Wisniewski defended the county’s plan to allow buildings up to 225 feet high to be constructed around the edge of the marina and structures up to 75 feet high on peninsulas that jut into the harbor to encourage marina leaseholders to invest in new development.

If the recommendations of the Coastal Commission staff had been followed, the maximum height would have been 140 feet on the periphery of the harbor and 45 feet on the waterfront properties.

After more than three hours of discussion, the commission struggled with a series of motions before finally approving the plan, which calls for construction of more than 2,600 additional residential units, 905 more hotel rooms, another 1,875 restaurant seats, 383 more boat slips and expanded retail and office space.

Commissioner Juan Vargas of San Diego urged approval of the county’s proposal, saying that members of the state panel need to respect Los Angeles County’s decisions about what the marina should look like in the future.

But Commissioner Gary Giacomini of Marin County told colleagues that the county’s development plan would overwhelm recreational uses of the marina and “wall off access of the public to the coast, which is what we are to protect.”

Commissioner Madelyn Glickfeld of Malibu strongly opposed the plan, saying it violated the state Coastal Act by converting existing public areas to private residential use at the expense of millions of Los Angeles residents who need more access to the waterfront.

After the final vote, Glickfeld called the commission’s action “appalling” and said the plan amounted to planning by and for the marina’s developers who lease public property from the county on a long-term basis.

Lobbyist Barna Szabo, representing the Marina del Rey Lessees Assn., hailed the vote, saying it will spur negotiations to extend leases and spark redevelopment of the marina.

As partners with the county in the marina, Szabo said that the leaseholders were “very supportive” of the county’s plan and that “the commission has to listen to one of the most powerful local bodies in the state.”

Iylene Weiss, head of Friends of Marina del Rey, a citizens group formed to oppose the county’s high-rise plans, said Coastal Commission appointees of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and Gov. Pete Wilson are responsible for the plan’s approval.

“The people very definitely lost today,” she said. “The county won on everything. We didn’t get a park. We didn’t get low-rise buildings on the water.”

Weiss and other speakers, including Sierra Club coastal coordinator Mark Massara, urged the commission to make the last undeveloped waterfront property in the marina a public park. The commission rejected the suggestion.

Massara reminded commissioners that the marina is publicly owned and that the plan represents a “massive shift of public resources into private hands.” Rather than a public marina, he said, the harbor will be “a conglomeration of high-rise luxury developments.”

The Coastal Commission staff had urged rejection of the plan unless the county’s proposed 22-story height limit on buildings around the marina was sharply reduced, additional parkland was made available and funding was guaranteed for widening streets and improving intersections to handle additional traffic.

Peter Douglas, the commission’s executive director, said the marina has inadequate parkland for daytime use, especially in the summer and on weekends. He noted that the marina originally was developed more than 30 years ago with public funds after county voters were told it would be a recreational harbor.

“We don’t think enough has been done consistent with the promise that was made,” Douglas said.