Treasure Island: A model for the Dunes debate?

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- John Mansour makes it sound easy.

The vice president of development for the Athens Group, an Arizona

company that plans to build a hotel in Laguna Beach, said it’s not only

important, but beneficial for business interests to work with

environmentalists.

And after the surprisingly upbeat approval of the Athens Group’s Treasure

Island development by the California Coastal Commission earlier this

week, some are suggesting that a similar compromise between developers

and environmentalists might be possible for the controversial Newport

Dunes project.

All it takes is the willingness to be flexible while thinking green,

argued Garry Brown, the director of Orange County CoastKeeper, a water

quality advocacy group.

“It can’t always be at loggerheads because it gives the public the

perception that you either have growth and development or you have

environmentalism and no growth and development, and that’s just not

true,” Brown said. “They go hand in hand.”

But if the 275-room, 30-acre Treasure Island project eventually proved

acceptable to Laguna Beach environmentalists, it’s far from clear that

the Dunes resort will manage to perform the same feat.

Susan Caustin, an opponent of the 470-room hotel and 31,000-square-foot

convention center that would be built at the Dunes, said she has slim

hopes for a Treasure Island-style agreement between Newport Beach

environmentalists and Evans Hotels, owner of the Dunes.

“The convention center and the hotel now are so far oversized that it’s

difficult to see a middle ground that would accommodate both sides,” she

said.

Far from being encouraged by the Coastal Commission’s decision, Caustin

said she interprets it as an indication that the agency will probably

rubber-stamp the Dunes project.

“It was actually somewhat surprising to me because I was feeling that the

Coastal Commission might have been less receptive to Treasure Island,

given the sensitive nature of the location,” she said. “That just

reaffirms my very strong belief that a referendum is the only way to stop

this hotel.”

For their part, representatives of Evans Hotels echoed the Athens Group’s

sentiments about working with environmentalists.

“It’s just one component of being sensitive to an entire community’s

concerns,” said Robert Gleason, a spokesman for Evans Hotels. “That’s a

necessary part of any good-quality development.”

But at the same time, Gleason said the company has had to face the

reality that “some people don’t want to see anything there and will fight

the project regardless of what the project description is.”

Gleason also emphasized that Evans Hotels has already extensively revised

its project in response to concerns raised by the city’s Planning

Commission.

“We’ve made so many compromises,” he said. “We’ve been doing this from

the very beginning.”

Whether there is still enough negotiating room left to forge an agreement

remains to be seen.

Brown, discussing an upcoming meeting between CoastKeeper and Evans

officials, sounded upbeat. But he conceded that his group’s primary

concern -- water quality -- may be easier to address than problems like

traffic and density.

“We have to stay focused on what we know about,” he said.

COMPROMISE?

Is it too late for a compromise to be reached between environmentalists

and developers of the proposed Dunes resort hotel? Call our Readers

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