A push to create more inexpensive hotel rooms along the state’s coastline has led the California Coastal Commission today to reject a $30 million, 175-room hotel project planned for Harbor Island in San Diego.
The commissioners voted 9-2 to deny an amendment to the Port of San Diego’s master land use plan, one of numerous items taken up during the second of three days of meetings in Chula Vista.
The master plan originally envisioned one 500-room hotel at the site on the east end of Harbor Island but was subsequently modified to three lodging houses that would offer 500 rooms combined.
With the commission putting a renewed focus on public access to the coastline in the form of lower-cost overnight accommodations, the port had offered to have 25 percent of the remaining 325 rooms fit in low- to middle-cost categories.
Of more than 8,000 rooms that provide overnight stays on port tidelands, only 237 are considered lower cost — and those are at a recreational vehicle park in Chula Vista, according to a commission staff report. Commissioner Mark Vargas said that works out to around 3 percent of the available rooms. The figure should be more like 25 percent since the port administers public land, he said.
The east side of Harbor Island where the three hotels would have been located is currently the site of overflow parking for airport rental car companies. With auto rental services being moved soon to the north side of Lindbergh Field, the port is facing the prospect of losing the leases for the property in another year or two.
The California Coastal Commission has authority over development and land-use decisions along the state’s shoreline.
–City News Service