Planners OK Marblehead Development

After two months of public hearings and community workshops, the San Clemente Planning Commission this week approved a developer’s proposal to build homes and a shopping center on one of the last undeveloped areas of Orange County’s coastline.

The plan by Irvine-based Lusk Holding Co. for the 250-acre Marblehead property calls for 434 homes, a retail center and entertainment complex between Interstate 5 and the city’s historic North Beach area.

After a Monday meeting that went on well past midnight, the Planning Commission approved the project on a 6-1 vote.

“This has got to be one of the strongest sites from the El Toro Y to Tijuana,” Commissioner Mark Schmitt said.

Approval was granted over a recommendation by some city officials to limit the commercial portion of the project to outlet stores and an entertainment center. Some residents too said they would prefer development on a smaller scale.

“The commercial center is too intense,” resident Philip Steblay said. “Sixty-one acres of concrete, asphalt and glass is way too much for the environment.”

Resident Wayne Eggleston also said the plan should be scaled back.

“We have a clean canvas,” Eggleston said. “Let’s not make it look like any other city.”

Details of the project, including the number of parking spaces, must be worked out before the City Council considers and votes on the development.

“There’s still work to be done,” said William D. Ross II, of SDC Partners Ltd. in Newport Beach, which is working with Lusk on the project. “Parking issues are important to our tenants. . . . When you tell a retailer he can’t have his parking, he gets upset.”

The Lusk proposal, backed by the San Clemente Chamber of Commerce, includes a Target Greatlands store, an Albertsons supermarket and a Longs drugstore. Lusk officials said the project would not be viable without those retail anchors.

City officials have raised concerns that those stores would be in direct competition with the nearby Plaza Pacific project, which would have a Wal-Mart store, and could doom that development. Plaza Pacific was approved last year at Avenida Pico and La Pata, about two miles from Marblehead, but work on the site has not yet begun.

“I think it’s going to be difficult for Wal-Mart to be successful if both . . . are built at the same time,” said David Lund, director of public works and economic development.

The consensus among planning commissioners, though, was that the city should not interfere with the developers’ proposals and that the community would benefit from the revenue that both projects would generate.

Final approval of the Marblehead coastal development by the City Council could come as early as June 3.