Coastal Commission votes 9-1 in favor of American Tin Cannery hotel project.

The California Coastal Commission voted 9-1 on Thursday, April 11 in favor of a revised plan to build a luxury hotel at the American Tin Cannery site in Pacific Grove, two years after a P.G. City Council approval was appealed by two commissioners, a P.G. citizens group and others. The vote came after over 70 people spoke, many of them urging denial, with some in support.

The two commissioners who appealed the council's decision in January 2022, Chair Caryl Hart and Vice Chair Linda Escalante, both voted yes for the hotel on Thursday.

Hart, who was vice chair two years ago when she appealed the council's approval, said she strongly supported the revised project that includes a water use cap, increased public access, lower-cost rooms and increased monitoring of the nearby harbor seal population. 

The lone "no" vote was Commissioner Paloma Aguirre, from the San Diego region, who voiced concerns about the hotel's water usage and worried that a plan to send laundry to a plant in Salinas would negatively impact water in the majority Latino community.

Coastal commission staff worked for over a year with the developer, Comstock Development, to revise the plans, which included a cap on water usage which included water used at the laundry plant. 

Comstock representatives also agreed to decreasing the size of the resort by 85,000 square feet, increasing public access and adding low-cost rooms along with hostel-type lodging and 300 nights a year of low-cost to free rooms for organizations representing underserved communities.

In addition to concerns over water, those people urging denial of the project said the noise created by current construction plans could drive P.G.'s harbor seal population away permanently. The group P.G. Coast Watch played a video of harbor seals flushing the beach in numbers due to a disturbance. They also pointed to a study that linked increased miscarriages to a nearby road project carried out by the City of P.G.

Despite their concerns, commissioners in support said they were satisfied by a monitoring program agreed to by the developer, as well as a ban on construction from December to July and other requirements.

A number of P.G. residents spoke, both for and against.

Councilmember Luke Coletti, who was the only councilmember to vote "no" in 2022, said he had concerns because the commission was making a decision based on conceptual drawings and not on dimensioned plans.

He also said he had concerns about water supply due to the cease-and-desist order from using water from the Carmel River, arguing that the rest of the Monterey Peninsula has to labor under the CDO "while a luxury hotel gets a pass from the Coastal Commission."

Immediately following Coletti was former P.G. mayor Bill Kampe who spoke in favor of the project. "Today the ATC is a large, lifeless and decaying structure," he said. Kampe argued in favor of a project that incorporates activities for people combined with protection of wildlife and praised the inclusion of low-cost rooms "for the people who need them most."

While the coastal commission approval was significant, there is still a lawsuit in the offing from P.G. Coast Watch that was postponed while the Coastal Commission process was underway. That lawsuit could be reactivated, leaving it to a judge to weigh in.