The California Coastal Commission approved a landmark settlement Wednesday with San Diego’s Paradise Point resort aimed at remedying years of Coastal Act violations that have long inhibited public access to the waterfront on city-owned property.
The agreement, approved unanimously, not only calls for removing development from the Mission Bay resort that was never authorized by the Coastal Commission, but it also requires extensive new signage and improvements that will encourage people to visit tranquil beach areas that many have long thought were for the exclusive use of paying hotel guests.
The monetary value of the settlement is estimated to be $4.1 million, which includes a $1 million fine; more than 70 new coastal access signs to be posted across the 52-acre resort, additional public restrooms near the beach; and a $500,000 outreach program to bring lower-income students and their families to the resort for free overnight stays. A crucial outcome of the commission’s “consent order” will be an uninterrupted pathway across the three-quarter mile length of the bayfront within the leased site.
The resort ownership, Maryland-based Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, also will be required to implement a marine debris reduction plan; replace an aging, wooden public pier at the south end of the property; and come up with a plan for improving water quality within the resort’s bayfront lagoon where a pump and pipe previously installed without commission approval has been sucking in water from Mission Bay, possibly trapping small fish.
While commission staff acknowledged that the settlement cannot totally make up for years of lost public access, the approved remedies still represent “the greatest improvement of public access in the 60-year history of these leased public trust tidelands and will dramatically improve the public access experience here,” said Rob Moddelmog, statewide enforcement analyst for the commission.
Still, some of the commission expressed concerns about the potential for repeat violations, even with a costly settlement. Commissioner Paola Aguirre, the mayor of Imperial Beach, called the violations “egregious” and wondered if the settlement was punitive enough given that some of the violations persisted, despite warnings in the past.
Gretchen Newsom, an alternate commissioner from San Diego, specifically questioned whether a $1 million fine is sufficient to ensure similar violations do not reoccur years from now. Proceeds from that fine will go into a special statewide reserved for such initiatives as improving public coastal access, acquiring open space, and completing regional trails.
“What is enough of a fine to deter you from blocking public access to the property again because the last thing I want to to see (is) we agree to a million-dollar fine and then this happens again,” said Newsom. “I don’t want to see this happen again.”
Lisa Haage, chief of enforcement for the Coastal Commission, said she is confident that the fine is substantial enough to discourage repeat bad behavior. On top of that, she added, there are “stipulated penalties” in the agreement of $3,000 a day per violation. “So if there’s one sign that’s out of place or there’s one person that’s turned away, that’s $3,000 and we will try to be as vigilant as we can in enforcing that.”
Although the many Coastal Act violations predate Pebblebrook’s acquisition of the resort in 2018, it still has taken years and repeated warnings from the commission to reach a point where those violations could be resolved. There was a point earlier this year when the Coastal Commission’s enforcement division was close to seeking a cease and desist order without buy-in from Paradise Point.
Even after the resort’s previous ownership was advised of numerous public access transgressions, they persisted. Similarly, more recent warnings from the commission also went unheeded on occasion. The hotel, for example, posted a guard and kiosk at the hotel entrance, giving visitors the impression that the resort was private and exclusive. The commission would advise the hotel to remove the guard, and the resort would comply, only to learn later on that the guard reappeared.
Pebblebook executive David Danieli did not revisit the history of the violations but told the commissioners that the ownership is looking forward to “resolving this issue and expanding public access on Vacation Isle with the proposed resolution, including substantially expanding public access signs and advertising free coastal amenities on our website.”
He noted that Pebblebrook had added, on its own, the pier replacement, which he said will be designed with a lift that will allow people with reduced mobility to access boats docked at the gangway. The cost, he said, would be $1.1 million.
With the commission’s action, Pebblebrook will now be free to revive its longstanding plan to reposition Paradise Point as a Margaritaville Resort. First announced in 2019, the transition to the Jimmy Buffett hotel and restaurant brand was expected to happen within a year, but between the pandemic and the unresolved, years-long violations, the then $35 million project was sidelined. Danieli did not say Wednesday when plans for the reimagined resort would be submitted.
The project application had been scheduled to go before the commission twice this year but in June, Pebblebrook pulled its application from the agenda in the face of strong opposition from organized labor and local elected leaders.
Coastal access advocates on Wednesday lauded the commission for its vigilant enforcement but chided the resort for disregarding the strictures of the Coastal Act.
“These are not innocent mistakes,” said Laura Walsh, California Policy Manager for the Surfrider Foundation, referring to the resort’s use of a guard at the entrance to the property and its placement of a large event tent on public parking spaces. “They are violations typical of old school San Diego attempts to privatize the public beach and we appreciate commission staff for taking their enforcement seriously.”
It’s not entirely clear how long it will be before all the elements of the settlement will go into effect. Paradise Point has 30 days to submit its proposed sign plan, which should take about one to two months to review, said Moddelmog. Once approved, it will probably be no more than a couple of weeks before all the signs could be posted, he said. Other projects, though, could take longer and there is currently no set timeline.
