MB Poets File Lawsuit Against Proposed Manhattan Beach Hotel

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA — A group of Manhattan Beach residents who live near a proposed hotel/retail/office development on Sepulveda Boulevard where the El Torito restaurant once stood simply want the City of Manhattan Beach to order an environmental review that examines the parking, traffic and noise impacts the development would bring to the neighborhood. Tonight [Tuesday, Jan. 19], the Manhattan Beach City Council is set to hold a public hearing to consider granting a Master Use Permit for the project.

The proposed development for 600 South Sepulveda Boulevard includes a 162-room, 81,775-square-foot hotel with full alcohol service and a new 16,268-square-foot retail and office building with "reduced parking" of 152 spaces, according to the city council agenda.

MB Poets, a group of residents who live near the proposed project in what is dubbed the Poets Section and formed a nonprofit public-benefit corporation to counter the development, have filed a lawsuit and contend the project violates city and state law regarding parking, traffic and noise impacts, all substantiated by expert opinions.

The lawsuit contends that the project developer's transportation engineer KHA's "analysis fails to include the cumulative traffic impacts from the Skechers office buildings" currently under construction and "understates parking required, by using average parking-demand ratios, rather than the industry-standard 85th percentile values in Parking Generation."

Due to these claims by MB Poets, the groups says that because the development's "proposed 152 spaces do not comply with city code, parking becomes a CEQA factor" and that "the categorical exemption of In-Fill Development Projects assigned by city staff" is not applicable to the development, the California Environmental Quality Act applies and an Environmental Impact Report should be completed.

"A hotel, and in this case a mixed use development of offices/shops and a full bar and restaurant open 7 to 1 a.m. are a unique source of adverse impacts unlike almost any other development that could go in at a site," said MB Poets member and Manhattan Beach resident Darryl Franklin. "The 100+ recent police calls regarding The Residence Inn [1700 North Sepulveda Boulevard] show this. Yes, Skechers developments [330 South Sepulveda Boulevard] are large but they are also relatively simple in terms of operations. Office workers, come in, they go home — all in business hours — and don’t do a lot in between. Gelson's [707 North Sepulveda Boulevard] has a lot of daytime traffic but no after hours operations, no music and no noise coming from 160 hotel rooms. Both of these had full EIRs."

He continued, "A hotel with bar offices and shops... the day starts with large truck deliveries early in the morning — linens, food and beverage, hotel supplies for 160 plus bedrooms, never mind potential retail deliveries — the estimate from a head chef friend of mine is 5-10 large trucks a day depending on food and beverage demands — traffic comings and goings are at all hours, noise generation from a hotel in terms of guests is totally different to that of an office building where the windows are sealed — add a large bar and restaurant where the current design has sliding glass walls, add in the comings and goings of guests of hotel guests, the staff and functions, especially at weekends and late into the night — Which hotel isn't trying to get functions booked?"

After the city's planning commission postponed an October meeting on the project until November to give residents time to survey the project proposal, MB Poets had formed to officially contend with the project. They sent the city a letter of objection to the proposed granting of a CEQA exemption and Master Use Permit and attached two expert's reports on traffic/parking and acoustics for the proposed development.

The nonprofit also engaged the services of CEQA specialist lawyer Doug Carstens who also wrote to the city and spoke at the hearing "as to why the proposed development is ineligible for the proposed exemption and master use permit," said Franklin.

"The city owes it to the community to get it right from the start," Franklin told Manhattan Beach Patch, "not close their eyes to the many and real issues and then just deal with the issues ad hoc as they arise after. The reality is many will be very hard to deal with after everything is built and operational. A desire for tourist tax revenue should not come at any cost."