OCEANSIDE – The City Council probably won't sign a development agreement with Manchester Resorts to build two hotels and a golf course until April or even November.
It was due to sign the agreement before March 1.
However, the city staff is recommending a "time out," first to find out what the state Coastal Commission does to the project the week of April 9, and then to determine how one or two initiatives on the Nov. 5 ballot affect it.
Manchester, a San Diego developer, wants to build a 400-room luxury hotel complex at the beach and a smaller resort hotel and championship golf course on city-owned property known as El Corazon three miles inland, at Oceanside Boulevard and El Camino Real.
City officials and Manchester representatives expressed frustration at the delay yesterday, but appeared resigned to it.
"I've been frustrated for quite a while," Councilwoman Betty Harding said. "It seems like every roadblock in the world has been put in front of that project."
But, she said, it's best for the city to find out what the Coastal Commission does with the project, probably at the April meeting, and what Manchester decides to do after that, before the council signs the deal.
To do otherwise might make the city legally liable for promises it could no longer keep, Harding said.
"It's very frustrating that we do not have the ability to move forward," given the effort and money Manchester has invested, said Perry Dealy, vice president for operations at Manchester Resorts.
The council is scheduled to vote on the proposed delay in a public meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall after discussing it in a closed session.
During the public meeting, it also will address whether to release an environmental impact report, originally due Jan. 15, on the proposed El Corazon project.
Dealy said Manchester's plans for the beach and El Corazon are inextricably linked.
"I think we've got to have both to make this thing viable," he said.
Both are included in Manchester's exclusive negotiating agreement with the city and in the formal development agreement that Manchester has signed and the council was to sign.
However, a citizens' group, Save El Corazon, has collected enough signatures to put on the ballot – now scheduled for Nov. 5 – a measure that would dedicate the 544-acre city-owned property as public parkland. Most of the land is a former sand-mining quarry.
City Attorney Duane Bennett said yesterday that it "would not be very wise" for the City Council to sign an agreement with Manchester until then.
He said he could not comment on whether Manchester would support a proposed council alternative to the citizens' initiative until he saw the wording, still to be determined.
The council is considering a countermeasure for the November ballot that would allow Manchester's proposed hotel and golf course. It also would suggest that a planning group be set up to propose specific other uses for the rest of the property, possibly including ball fields and a new senior center.
Deputy City Manager Mike Blessing said yesterday that it is uncertain whether the council-sponsored alternative measure would require a new environmental impact report or whether such action should await the recommendations of the planning group.
The currently prepared environmental impact report for the El Corazon hotel and golf course was delivered on time, but city officials said they found typographical errors and sent it back to a consultant, Recon, to correct.
The corrected version was due back yesterday.
Generally, the City Council does not approve the distribution of such reports, and they are released upon receipt.
But this time, Blessing said, with any changes the El Corazon election might bring, the staff is asking if the council might not want to delay the official comment period for the report and simply release it informally.
If the council agrees Wednesday night, the document should be available Thursday, said Blessing.
Lola Sherman: (760) 476-8241; lola.sherman@uniontrib.com
