Treasure Island Resort Criticized at Hearing

Local environmentalists have told the City Council that a plan to redevelop the Treasure Island mobile home park into a luxury resort is too dense, too commercial and too exclusive.

Representatives from Village Laguna and the South Laguna Civic Assn. dominated a public hearing this week. Ron Harris, the civic association president, suggested that the 30-acre property become an arboretum and conference center. It would appeal to residents and tourists but would offer more open space than a resort, he said.

Council members didn’t comment on Harris’s proposal or on a presentation by Merrill Lynch Hubbard, which owns the property and wants to redevelop it with a hotel, villas and estate-size lots.

But city officials have said that any proposal that lacks a hotel, which would generate an estimated $1 million in tax revenue a year, is unlikely to win approval.