ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : A Victory for Compromise

Some have wondered whether a $500-million resort project, the largest yet along the pricey Orange County coastline, is a bit of 1980s indulgence in the recession-bitten 1990s.

But the most recent incarnation of the planned Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point--the latest of several proposals floated over several decades--won approval this week from the California Coastal Commission. It boasts in addition to its hotel and residential development a $5.3-million community park, many hiking and biking trails, vista points, botanical gardens and tramways. All are designed to increase access to the resort and nearby beach, a welcome approach to fostering advantageous public use and development of the coastline.

The result is notable for the compromise it showed between levels of government and local interest groups, especially in such hard times for fledgling ventures. Dana Point, host already to several other resorts, expects $2.26 million more in annual revenue to support a city budget--a third of which is made up of hotel taxes. The public will get its trails, views and parkland.

It is a sign of persistence that the Japanese developer Nippon Shinpan stayed with this often-revised project through 13 public hearings and a flood of public comment. Mayor Pro Tem Judy Curreri euphemistically described the process as one of “intense public scrutiny.”

It’s not yet clear how the commission’s stipulation that 25% of 238 residential units--houses and condominiums--be made “affordable” will be met in such an expensive piece of real estate. But the general agreement of the various parties that major new coastal development can be a community asset if carefully designed is a hopeful accomplishment in a time of anxiety over both the economy and the quality of coastal development.