BREAKING NEWS: Dana Point City Council Denies CDP Appeal, Approves Permit for Commercial Core Construction

As you know, the Dana Point Planning Commission's approval last month of the building permit (CDP) for our Harbor's reconstruction was appealed to the City Council.  Tonight the City Council heard the appeal, with many public speakers advocating for and against approval of the appeal.  It was a marathon meeting.

The City Council had three choices tonight: 1) Deny the appeal outright, permitting construction to commence; 2) Approve the appeal (deny the permit) and send the permit application back to the County for further revision, and probable project redesign; or 3) Deny the appeal (approve construction), but attach conditions to the permit to address boater concerns. 

Your Dana Point Boaters Association publicly advocated for option 3) Deny the appeal (and approval of the permit) with conditions to be met before construction could commence.  We will elaborate later (after getting some sleep), but our conditions consisted of refinements to boater parking management during and after construction, a publicly-disclosed finance plan that avoided an unfair burden on our boaters, and adjustments to the day use and dry boat storage plan.  You can read our letters to the Dana Point City Council by (Clicking Here). 

Here's the deal...  If the City Council had approved the appeal and returned the application to the County for revision, we would face lengthy delays and significant additional expense as the Revitalization Plan went back to the drawing board (it's already been 17 years in the making).  We're talking possibly years and likely hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional expense before the CDP application passed through the approval gauntlet once again.  If the City Council simply denied the appeal, the CDP application would certainly be appealed again, this time to the California Coastal Commission.  Yet another delay, though not as lengthy or expensive as an outright denial of the building permit by the City.  Or they could have attached conditions to their approval of the permit, thereby addressing boater concerns while also avoiding additional appeals (time and money) - in our assessment, this was the most effective outcome.

So the City Council did the second best thing.  They didn't send the application back to the County for revision (delays and money), but they didn't give us a shortcut and approve the building permit with our conditions. So what's next?

The CDP approval will certainly be appealed yet again (the City Council publicly conceded to this), at which time all players' concerns will be heard again before the Coastal Commission.  We will be there.  While we had hoped to avoid this detour, we will use this opportunity to again request our conditions be attached to the Coastal Commissions' approval of the CDP to commence construction of our new harbor.

To be clear, we favor Harbor Revitalization.  We need it.  You want it.  But we need to grasp at the last opportunities to avoid further loss of boater resources.  Our ideal outcome (at this stage in the game) is to convince the Coastal Commission to approve the CDP with conditions that address our remaining concerns about financing, boater parking and traffic management, and dry boat storage.

Stick with us.  Please.  This is a challenging and complicated process with so many moving parts and competing interests.

Thank you for your support,

Please Remember, to keep Dana Point boaters voice strong, we need your support. 

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