Dispute over hotel projects divides residents and businesses in Ventura, Oxnard
With one expansion and two brand new hotels in the works, impacts on area tourism are examined
By Paul Sisolak 02/11/2010
While residents of an exclusive beach community in Oxnard continue to decry the expansion of a nearby hotel, claiming that it will decimate their quality of life, a local visitors bureau offers its support for new construction projects it believes will be a boon to the tourist industry, which has been hurt by the bad economy.
Between the proposed changes to the Embassy Suites at Mandalay Beach and the construction of another new Embassy Suites near Surfers Point in Ventura, plus a Hyatt Place planned just off Highway 101, new area hotels have been met with the enmity of some residents and businesses, but the encouragement of officials invested in their asset to tourism and city revenues.
“We’re supportive of tourism,” says Oxnard homeowner Diane Delaney. “We just don’t want this place to expand and ruin the neighborhood. Why would they want to destroy it?”
Delaney is just one of 600 residents of The Colony, the Mandalay Beach enclave that calls the Embassy Suites its neighbor, who are opposed to the expansion of the hotel. Within the last month, Delaney has led the petition gathering process, which now has resulted in almost 700 signatures and frowns upon a project that signatories say will block their views of the Pacific and cause overcrowded street parking meant for residents.
In the petition, residents like Delaney have been critical of the project’s scale, which they claim will add another 40,000 square feet, 57 new suites and a two-story build-up at certain points of the hotel, exceeding the three-story limit imposed by the city of Oxnard.
Next door in Ventura, at least one member of the area business community has voiced opposition to construction of a 152-room, four-story hotel in the form of a Hyatt Place. While representatives from Affinity could not be reached for comment, the outdoor recreation provider has been critical in the past of the hotel proposed just off Seaward Avenue, which it says will diminish one of the only views it has of the ocean just off the corner of the highway.
Yet construction of the Hyatt and of an Embassy Suites proposed for a spot near the county fairgrounds near Surfers Point could be just the boost Ventura’s tourism trade is looking for.
“In general, I think they will be very good for our local economy. The proposed locations are such that I don’t see them having much negative impact,” said Jim Luttjohann, executive director of the Ventura Visitor and Convention Bureau.
Tourism in Ventura did not fare well in 2009. Even with the ever-popular Marriott, according to Luttjohann, transient occupancy taxes (a 10-percent fee charged to guests of area hotels, motels and other lodgings) were down $1 million. The taxes, or TOTs, are used as revenue for the city’s general fund for discretionary improvements — street repairs and the like. (Occupancy rates for Ventura were unavailable.)
However, the loss in TOT revenue also means that the visitor and convention bureau enters 2010, and the upcoming spring/summer season, with a $100,000 decline of its own, Luttjohann estimates. The loss is a cyclical one, he says, and without monies gained from hotel visits, the bureau must scale back its efforts to market the city’s bucolic seaside charm as a reason to book a hotel room there.
Whether the economy is the first to turn around, or whether Ventura’s hotels should be built more quickly, is anyone’s guess. According to city planners, schedules for both structures are in a slight holding pattern. Brian Randall, a planner in charge of the Embassy Suites project, said that developers of the hotel endeavor have until March of next year to finalize their deal, two years after they were granted all of their necessary planning permits from the city.
“It was several permits in one action,” Randall recalled of the April 2009 City Council meeting. “We’re just waiting for them to come back.”
For the Hyatt, it could take even longer. Developers of that property won’t be coming before the city’s planning commission for approvals until next week, two months after commissioners asked Hyatt representatives to provide visual mockups to show that the hotel won’t impinge on companies like Affinity.
Jeff Lambert, the city’s community development director, said that the Hyatt is proposing a maximum height of 52 feet, a 10- to 15-foot extension beyond what city codes allow.
In the case of the Hyatt, as well as the potential expansion of the Embassy Suites at Mandalay Beach, should both hotels be granted their coastal permit approvals at heights beyond their municipal limits, the projects can be appealed to the California Coastal Commission.
Delaney, with her group, the Committee Against Hotel Expansion, says she’ll do just that should the project be green-lighted by Oxnard officials. In addition to the tangible aspects of what the project may do to The Colony and surrounding beachfront areas in Oxnard, Delaney has taken issue the past few weeks with the city’s protocol regarding the project.
For one, committee members claim they were denied entry to an advisory meeting between hotel developers and the city on Feb. 3.
From that meeting, according to planner Juan Martinez, developers will take suggestions from the development advisory committee, which will later be taken before the city’s planning commission and City Council. No time frame has been set for either meeting.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT