After 21 years of planning, back and forth litigation with the Coastal Commission, and a whole lot of dollars spent, developer Ed Ghandour might finally get to build his Sand City eco-resort, Monterey Bay Shores.
The turning point began last spring, when Ghandour won an appeal in the San Francisco County Superior court that remanded Ghandour’s coastal development permit back to the Coastal Commission, which had twice denied the permit—once in 2000 and again in 2009.
According to Sarah Christie, the commission’s legislative director, the court’s decision hinged on sand dunes. The commission had deemed dunes on the proposed site environmentally sensitive habitat (ESHA), a claim that is inconsistent with Sand City’s local coastal plan (LCP), which states they are not ESHA.
The court ruled in favor of the Sand City LCP interpretation, and instructed the commission to work with Ghandour’s company Security National Guaranty (SNG) to come up with a revised plan that the commission would recommend for approval. Both were parties were instructed, once the revised plan was complete, to sign a binding agreement that halts further litigation until the commission votes on whether to grant a permit to the revised plan.
SNG submitted the revised plan in October of last year, and signed the binding agreement on Dec. 23. Charles Lester, the commission’s executive director, signed it the next day.
The public has until Feb. 12 to comment on the revised plan, the day when the Coastal Commission will meet in Pismo Beach for a vote on its fate. Although the agreement signed by Lester states that he must recommend approval for the project to the commission, Christie says commission members can still vote to deny it.
The settlement agreement, along with the revised plan and conditions of approval, is attached.