A contentious P.G. luxury hotel proposal goes to the Coastal Commission with changes.

For years, opponents of a proposed luxury resort hotel to replace the American Tin Cannery contended the project was too large and not properly vetted by the City of Pacific Grove. Approval by the P.G. City Council in January 2022 was met with multiple appeals to the California Coastal Commission and a lawsuit. Commission staff agreed, and now, two years later, a somewhat smaller project with greater public access is headed toward a possible decision by commissioners on Thursday, April 11.

“We are in full support of the staff’s recommendations for the project,” says Debra Geiler, representing developer Comstock Development. The revised plans drop the building area of the hotel by around 85,000 square feet, from approximately 340,000 square feet to 255,000. The mass is also reduced and provides 25-percent more open space than the previous plan, Geiler says.

The original plans called for 225 luxury rooms at market rate. The new plan includes 222 rooms, 18 of which would be no more than $184 per night, according to the Coastal Commission staff report. Sixteen “shared accommodation” rooms were added to the plan, reminiscent of a hostel setup, where families and groups can stay together or singles and couples can reserve individual beds, at a cost of $85 per bed. Geiler says they also created a program that will offer 300 nights a year of no – to low-cost accommodations for groups from underserved communities.

The lower-cost rooms came after commission staff determined the city didn’t go far enough in ensuring affordable coastal access, as required by P.G.’s Local Coastal Program, approved by the Coastal Commission in 2019. (The City Council did require Comstock to provide 56 low-cost rooms, but only for select people like teachers and first responders, plus in-lieu fees.)

Thom Akeman is a critic of the project and a volunteer harbor seal monitor at the rookery at beaches along Ocean View Boulevard, just across the street from the project. Despite monitoring during construction, he still doubts that the noise created won’t disturb P.G.’s harbor seal population. “We don’t think [the conditions] will work nearly as well as they think they will,” he says.

Akeman fears construction noise could drive away the harbor seals permanently, and points to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study from 2022 after city road work noise was considered the likely suspect in 23 miscarriages among harbor seals that year. He estimates 20 percent of the seal colony left and never returned.

Geiler says Comstock agreed to abide by the same construction conditions required of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which in recent years has been retrofitting its underwater intake piping system.

Another critic of the project, Anthony Ciani, filed a lawsuit in Monterey County Superior Court in February 2022 against the city, alleging violations of the California Environmental Quality Act, the Coastal Act and Local Coastal Program in approving the hotel. That lawsuit was suspended pending the Coastal Commission decision.

The California Coastal Commission hearing is set to begin at 9am Thursday, April 11 in Long Beach. A livestream is available at bit.ly/CCCLivestream.