Safety Concerns Down Hotel Plan : Torrey Pines Location Lies Beneath Flight Path of Jets From Miramar

Citing the high risk of an air disaster, the San Diego Planning Commission on Thursday grounded a plan for a Sheraton hotel and conference center that for years had been eagerly sought by the city.

Thursday’s 4-2 vote shocked Sheraton executives, who have already spent $2 million on plans for a four-story, 400-room hotel slated for construction on city land along Torrey Pines Road.

Ted Kissane, a Sheraton vice president, called the Planning Commission vote “unbelievable” and vowed to appeal the issue to the City Council next month.

But the planning commissioners were swayed by public testimony and an environmental impact report that says the proposed site is in an area with “a measurable potential for (aircraft) accidents.”

Under Flight Path

The 11.38-acre parcel, currently the site of the Torrey Pines Municipal Golf Course driving range, lies beneath the flight path used by aircraft taking off from Miramar Naval Air Station. According to Miramar officials, about 120 Navy aircraft fly over the site each day.

Commissioner Ralph Pesqueira said the potential for an air disaster above the site is increased because the Navy route crosses a zone that is used for student pilots from Montgomery Field who tend “to wander left and right and up and down” in their designated flight corridors.

When Commissioner Yvonne Larsen asked whether the potential crash hazards warranted closing other nearby businesses, Pesqueira said: “What we have . . . we have to live with.”

Acting Planning Commission Chairwoman Paula Oquita acknowledged that it was “desperately unfair to Sheraton to have this issue arise at this late date.” But Oquita added that “legitimate public concerns” for the safety of potential hotel patrons overshadowed matters of fairness toward the hotel developer and required reconsideration of the four-story conference compound.

Plan Approved by City

Sheraton was asked by city officials in 1981 to submit a proposal for a hotel. A year later, the city’s Property Department approved the Sheraton plan. On Thursday, Property Department Director Jim Spotts estimated that the hotel, which Sheraton said will cost $55 million to $60 million, could generate $1 million a year in rent for the city.

But since the publication of the city’s environmental impact report on the project this month, the Navy, the state Department of Transportation and the city’s Planning Department have announced opposition to the hotel. The report stresses that the potential safety hazard at the site is “significant” and “unmitigated.”

Caltrans, in a letter to the city dated April 10, said that the hotel’s “high intensity usage” is incompatible with flights of military aircraft. According to Jack Kemmerly, Caltrans’ aeronautics chief, the potential safety hazards are such that they “cannot be mitigated to a level of insignificance.”

Capt. Willice R. Mullins, commanding officer at Miramar, told the commissioners that the Navy opposes the use of the site for a hotel because it is poses a safety hazard.

“To us, it is a fundamental safety issue,” Mullins said. He objected to the site “for the same reason that we have opposed expansion of the (nearby) Torrey Pines Inn,” for “the same reason” the Navy diverts its aircraft around the crowds attending the annual professional golf tournament at the golf course. Miramar is about 6 1/2 miles southeast of the course.

Sheraton spokesman Craig Beam chided the Navy for reversing its position on the project. Beam claimed that the Navy had approved of the hotel project in 1981.

That year, the San Diego Assn. of Governments (Sandag) approved the site for a proposed hotel, and the Navy also gave its go-ahead.

Navy Reverses Position

But last week, in a letter sent to Sandag, Mullins said the Navy now opposes the hotel because it has been “greatly expanded” to include banquet rooms, meeting rooms and a ballroom seating more than 1,600.

Although Beam testified that the hotel’s ballroom and conference rooms would be located on the safer lower floors, the commissioners sided with attorney Michael Poynor, a spokesman for a group of residents called “Friends of Torrey Pines,” who oppose the hotel.

Poynor claimed that, over the 50-year life of the hotel, the city, as landlord, would be “playing real Russian roulette with the public’s money and public’s liability.”

So far the city has spent $200,000 for an option to buy out the lease to the driving range from the current lease holder. Poynor criticized the city for offering the site to Sheraton in 1981 without knowing if it could deliver the lease.

City officials say they must pay $1.8 million more to the leaseholder by September to actually buy out the lease. Poynor said that was “like me trying to sell your car without getting title to it. That’s a bit pushy.”

Sheraton Vice President Kissane stressed that the hotel chain had “proceeded in good faith to build a safe world-class facility to enhance the area for all of San Diego.” He called Thursday’s vote “very disappointing.”

In voting against the hotel, Commissioner Oquita said that even though Sheraton had operated in good faith for six years, the city had “made a mistake in ’81. I don’t think it was a good land-use plan then. I don’t think it was a safe place to put a hotel.”