Planning Commission Loves Durell Hotel

Give them 100% reclaimed toilet-to-tap water. Call it a substainable hotel.
Durell Hotel

Since its official approval last week, residents had 10 days to appeal the decision, which would then put the project into the hands of the P.G. City Council. Even if the council approved it, the project currently has no water credits. Those would have to come from the city’s Local Water Project.

“The council first has to decide what (water) will be allotted to commercial use and residential use from the reclamation site,” said Aeschliman. “Then it becomes first come first serve.”

Planning Commission Loves Durell Hotel

Initiative to Restrict Air BnBs Gets OK

Collected 17 percent of registered voters signatures. Webmaster here left PG 7 years ago when the vacation home investment bubble took away our affordable funky P.G. rental house, so you know where I stand on absentee owners that do nothing for the neighborhood.

Yes On M

The certified initiative would restore the city’s zoning rules and prohibit short-term vacation rentals in residential areas outside the coastal zone, which is overseen by the California Coastal Commission. Specifically, it would aim to provide an 18-month phase-out period for existing permitted short-term rentals that become nonconforming uses under the measure and to require voter approval of any changes to the measure. The initiative would not affect short-term rentals in commercial districts or the area governed by the coastal zone and wouldn’t change the city’s existing rules allowing room rentals in resident-occupied single-family homes.

Initiative to Restrict Air BnBs Gets OK

Short Term Rental Owners’ Crocodile Tears

Retired teachers from north unable to pay for their vacation home in P.G. without renting it out to different tourists every weekend, oh the agony.

“I’m devastated – we have one house that was considered a duplex and we lost both of those,” said Beverlee Taylor, who along with her husband Richard is a retired teacher who lives in Pleasanton but comes down to Pacific Grove often. The two discovered their love for P.G. 49 years ago when they honeymooned here.

“We don’t make much on it but we like to come down here with our family,” said Taylor, noting the $2,665 mortgage and close to $9,000 in taxes they paid. The proceeds they made on it as a short-term rental “met expenses … it paid expenses,” Taylor said.

Short Term Rental Owners’ Crocodile Tears

Holman Condos: $1,400,000 And Up

What? No Bowling Alley?

Holmans Bowling

Currently, the building’s 3,000 square-foot lobby, which will include a weight room, media center, bar, stage and lounge for private uses and special community events is having all of its electrical work finalized, according to Daniel Crnkovic, superintendent of construction. Eventually, it’s set to include marble floors and a grand fireplace.

Gash has ties to the community through his great-great-grandparents who came to the Monterey Peninsula from Oklahoma to work in the canneries. He said that opening up the space for community use is the company’s way of saying “thank you” to both the city and local residents who have supported the project

Holman Condos: $1,400,000 And Up

P.G. Pays Consultant $274K To Say “Fence Off The Shoreline”

Shoreline Management Plan = shoreline access restriction rules.

Remember when you could park on both sides of Ocean View at Asilomar and take your sweetie and a blanket to the dunes? Now it’s all going the don’t touch just look from over the fence rule.

closed for plants

The initiative, which is aimed at looking at ways to protect future public access along the shoreline while enhancing the area’s natural and cultural resources, will examine both challenges and opportunities involved in that endeavor moving forward.

The City hired Bay Area urban planning consultant Eisen/Letunic, which specializes in healthy and sustainable communities, for the preparation and development of the plan at a cost of $274,400.

P.G. Pays Consultant To Say “Fence Off The Shoreline”

P.G. Hiring Process

Family to police chief, not from the area and no HR experience.

City Hall Help Wanted

Elizabeth Schalau, a recent transplant from Myers’ home state of Michigan, is acting as Pacific Grove’s sole human resources analyst under a $25,000, 12-week, no-bid contract. Schalau is Myers’ sister-in-law, despite contract language barring awards to “immediate family” of city employees.

Schalau resigned from her job in Michigan to take the position in Pacific Grove, and the city gave her $5,000 to help find housing here. The total value of the contract is below the level that would trigger City Council review.

Schalau has no direct human resources experience, though she said she has management expertise.

P.G. Hiring Process

STR Businesses Challenge Lottery For Permits

Yes On M

STRONGpg includes Joy Colon-Jello who’d rather rent her house out as hotel rooms.

At the time, Mayor Bill Kampe explained the system was meant to reduce density in 52 blocks in the city, noting that out of the 475 blocks in the city, 175 have STRs present and 52 of those are over-dense by a 15 percent criteria.

In response, STRONGpg filed a lawsuit in April seeking a motion for preliminary injunction that would stop the lottery from occurring in the near future while the complaint filed against the city in regards to the revised STR ordinance is being investigated.

STR Businesses Challenge Lottery For Permits

Harveyspeak: We’re Not Doing Work In A Nature Preserve . .

. . . We’re doing improvements to a recreation zone.

All to bring a car auction circus to the golf course. Will Morrie Fisher get free admission?

Red Ferraris On Golf Course

City Council unanimously authorized City Manager Ben Harvey to enter into a five-year agreement with Worldwide Auctioneers for the annual car auction special event to take place on the 18th fairway during Classic Car Week in August.

In doing so, council members also approved proposed changes to the golf course’s 18th hole designed to accommodate the auction event, which displays more than 60 vintage automobiles ranging in price from $50,000 to $2 million. Specifically, the improvements would involve leveling a portion of the hole, which includes grading and filling, cart path realignment and the installation of a pedestrian walkway along Asilomar Boulevard.

Harveyspeak: We’re Not Doing Work In A Nature Preserve . .

Durell Delay

Did they ever solve the water intrusion at the Holman’s building? Is it the same soil conditions as this one with more underground parking?

Durell Hotel

After ongoing complaints by residents that it’s too large for its location, the developers behind Pacific Grove’s proposed Hotel Durell are once again working with the project’s architects to revise the hotel’s plans.

Proposed by property owner Nader Agha, the 125-room hotel would be located at 157 Grand Ave. on the block where the Holman Building is and where the Grand Central Station building currently stands. Plans for the future development that have already been revised include a restaurant, two conference rooms and an 88-space valet parking garage on the bottom level.

Durell Delay

Couple Robbed While Parked In P.G.

Getting beaten and robbed late at night in P.G. and not cooperating with Police? Why that?

Anyway, the recreation trails and shoreline turnouts are dangerous places at night.

Four mwn — one armed with a handgun — robbed a man and a woman in a parked car on Ocean View Boulevard around 11 p.m.

The victims, who were not named, are Monterey Peninsula residents, but are not from P.G., Lakind said. The man was treated by an ambulance crew and released.

Lakind is hoping for some useful leads, but the victims “are not super cooperative,” he said. “That makes it more difficult, obviously.” He’s unsure whether the robbery was random, or if the victims and suspects are somehow
linked.

Couple Robbed While Parked In P.G.