Wave of Discontent Over Marina Plan : Redevelopment: Coastal Commission’s approval of sweeping proposal to build apartment complexes and hotel is met with anger and frustration.

On the street where Darleen Kummer lives, the California Coastal Commission’s approval of a plan for massive redevelopment of Marina del Rey hit home like a thunderbolt on Thursday.

“It’s terrible. Just terrible,” said the travel consultant, contemplating the prospect of high-rise buildings casting shadows over the sunny condo she bought two years ago. “If we had wanted something like this, we would be in Westwood.”

In her neat, tree-lined neighborhood of professionals and retirees lying west of the county-owned marina, the Coastal Commission’s decision Wednesday cast a pall.

“I don’t like it,” said Mark Stefl, whose $1-million Silver Strand home nestles against the Ballona Lagoon, which lies between the Marina and the ocean.

Echoing a frequent refrain, he said, “I just want them to leave things the way they are.”

But Los Angeles County’s plan for the redevelopment of the aging marina will mean major changes in the look and feel of the waterfront community.

The three-story, 1960s-style apartment houses that line the marina’s peninsulas could be replaced by structures up to seven stories tall. Along Via Marina, the boulevard marking the marina’s western boundary, low-rise apartment complexes could be torn down to make way for high-rise apartment complexes and a 22-story hotel.

If built, these would be the tallest buildings in the marina, higher than the existing landmark condominiums of the 16-story Marina City Club and the Ritz-Carlton hotel.

From her condo on Via Marina, Ellen Fenton has an unobstructed view of the water. She looks out at a yacht harbor where vessels bob up and down in the water next to the area’s last undeveloped parcel of land.

Fenton was among those who wanted this 3.7-acre area converted to a park. But under the newly approved plan, a 225-foot high-rise hotel could be built there. “Not only would I lose my view,” said Fenton, 39, an investment broker who has lived next to the marina for 10 years, “but people in a tall building would be looking down on me.”

She sees redevelopment as the end to a way of life in the marina.

“They’re talking about building Ft. Lauderdale,” she said. “That’s not for me.”

For financially strapped Los Angeles County, which developed and lobbied for passage of the new master plan, the marina’s redevelopment is essential to boost revenue from the publicly owned land and harbor.

“Without redevelopment, the viability of this coastal attraction will continue to decline,” Stan Wisniewski, director of the county Department of Beaches and Harbors, testified at a Coastal Commission hearing Wednesday.

But boaters like Robert Grossman are skeptical.

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Grossman, who lives aboard a 36-foot ketch in Tahiti Marina, has heard all the arguments about how redevelopment would reinvigorate the deteriorating docks and marina buildings operated by private developers who lease the land from the county. But he doesn’t buy them.

“The bottom line is this is a deal for the profiteers--the leaseholders,” he said. “The gangways, the electrical equipment, everything you see here is 30 years old and is falling apart. But do I think it’s going to get better for boat owners as a result of this?,” he said. “No way.”

Boat owner John DeBoard expressed a different concern.

“At least now I can look up and see the sunset,” said DeBoard, who anchors his 27-foot sailboat just north of Tahiti Marina. “When they put high-rises in, it will be like Downtown Los Angeles except with water.”

Not everyone sees calamity in the plan for development of the marina.

Fran Scelzo, an information systems consultant who lives next to the marina, believes that redevelopment could provide a boost to sagging property values. “It really depends on whether I intend to retire here or sell out and go to Northern California,” says Scelzo, 48, who bought her home seven years ago.

But she added, “From a quality-of-life standpoint, I think you have to wish they hadn’t decided what they did.”

For some small businesses, the prospect of more development is welcome.

“More people means more customers,” said John Chang, owner of Marina Photo. “As long as they don’t come and clear me out [to build here].”

News of the plan came as a rude awakening for Sue Sasserd, 38, who learned just Thursday that the apartment building she has called home for three years could be razed to make way for a high-rise. “I think of the marina as a refuge from L.A.,” said Sasserd, who moved here from Seattle three years ago. “That they want to build it out is very disturbing.”

Dorothy Richardson, 67, was among those disappointed that the commission’s decision failed to provide more park space.

She uses Burton Chace Park, the marina’s largest park, as a place to relax by the water. A retired accountant who moved to the marina from Westwood two years ago, Richardson said the area is already so crowded that she avoids it on the weekend.

Mike Singleton of Tarzana, a former marina resident, was back enjoying the ocean breeze Thursday with his two young sons, who like to watch the sailboats.

“This is a special place to me,” Singleton said. “We come here as often as we can. If they are going to build high-rise buildings here I guess we’ll have to find another place.”

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Marina del Rey: the Next Generation

Los Angeles County’s plan for redeveloping Marina del Rey would dramatically increase residential and commercial structures around the world’s largest man-made small-craft harbor. The plan, approved Wednesday by the California Coastal Commission, could transform the community into an enclave of mid-rise and high-rise buildings.

EXISTING DEVELOPMENT

* Residential: 5,885 units * Hotels: 969 rooms * Restaurants: 7,333 seats * Retail space: 320,755 square feet * Office space: 399,727 square feet * Boat slips: 5,923

POTENTIAL NEW DEVELOPMENT

* Residential: 2,420 units * 75 senior care units * Hotels: 1,070 rooms * Restaurants: 1,875 seats * Retail space: 206,500 square feet * Office space: 58,000 square feet * Boat slips: 383 Source: Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning