Here’s an excerpt from the broker listing for the new El Colibri Hotel:
Amber Hotel Company is pleased to announce a price reduction on one of its exclusive listings in Cambria, California. Property highlights are as follows:
That’s over $394,000/room, which would require an average daily rate of well over $200/night year round to make any economic sense as an investment. This makes it look like hoteliers in Cambria may not be hurting so bad after all. |
Last 5 posts by Deryl Robinson
What dumb logic to think that an over priced unfinished motel for sale shows motel owners prosperity. An over priced home for sale does not show homeowners prosperity either. This illogical thinking also lead Deryl Robinson to say motel guests would be happy to pay a surcharge for the lot buy out plan. This shows just how much Deryl Robinson is truly out of touch with reality and completely misinformed he is about the real world of our small business community. A walk down Main Street and seeing all the vacant stores and all the vacant signs in front of Moonstone motels will show him the truth of how things really are. My concern with his dumb logic the next thing he will believe is our small business community can handle a 300% CCSD rate increase which we can’t. He represents the problem and not part of our needed solution for fiscal responsibility with government spending. If you want to know what fiscal responsibility is just ask a small businessperson, we live it every day.
It’s a little early for name-calling. Let’s see if it sells, and if it fills up.
From my personal experience rates on Moonstone Beach have increased much faster than inflation the past 10 years. I have also experienced difficulty getting a reservation even in “off season” times. I have not done any formal surveys, but it appears to me that they are doing well. I do know that not many developers will build a new hotel in a losing market. I also know that the lodging business nationally has been doing very well for the last few years.
Bob, what do your surveys indicate?
I have said that Main Street merchants should pay nothing toward the buildout reducition plan.
I do maintain that it would be very fair for hotel guests to pay a large share and they should happily do it in the interest of keeping Cambria beautiful and accessible. I know I would. If residents want to shoulder the burden and let hotel guests go on wasting water while they have to ration, that’s OK with me too. But somebody has to pay it. I will happily pay more than my share if given the chance.
The reality I am very in touch with about Cambria is that too many Cambrians want somebody else to carry all the burden. I am in touch with it because I am on the receiving end.
Bob, how would you like it if you invested in a small business and then before you could open the other nearby businessmen got together and decided you could not open your business because they felt there were not enough customers to go around? And then they told you to just eat the investment?
As a former motel owner on Moonstone Beach Drive I cannot believe that any property will have an average daily rate of over $200 per night year round. I wish whoever buys this property all the best but am wondering why the people who are building it are selling it – idle curiousity maybe on my part.
Why should a hotel guest pay for some politician’s no growth bias. Besides a hotel guest room has minimal opportunity to even waste water. How much water can you waste in a toilet and doing your toiletries at the bathroom sink. And who’s going to begrudge a visitor a warm tub after a chilly day in the village and its environs.
We have a long-standing policy of charging entry fees to public parks to raise money that is used to protect and maintain the parks. Visitors are willing to pay because they love the park. A user fee assessed on visitors to Cambria would do the same thing.
I think we all know that hotels use lots of water.
In Yosemite we have the private Yosemite Foundation that raises charitable donations from lovers of Yosemite that are spent making the park better. Maybe this concept would work in Cambria too.
As a Realtor in Cambria for the last many years, I have experienced much conflict in this on going debate about water…lack of it, political manouver or what.
Many people think that realtors just want lots of building so that they have even more to sell…not true. Like most people, we want Cambria to remain as small, charming and unspoiled as it is now,or was a few years ago. We also, being involved intimately in the stories of people not being allowed to use their lots, have huge sympathy for people like Deryl and URLO members. They definitely have a legitimate grievance. We are not talking huge developments of cookie cutter houses, but homes for people who have now waited for years, sometimes dying first, to build their one home.
I wish I knew the answer and a good solution or compromise: it does seem to me that allowing another large hotel to be built…yes, I know it is commercial water versus residential, is not being fair to the people on the waiting list for water hook up for a home. And, to add insult to injury, to see that hotel on the market almost as soon as it is finished, if not before, really makes one wonder about who is getting what ?
joie, you hit the nail on the head.
Nobody gets nothin’ in Cambria unless somebody else gets something for the other’s priviledge.
And No Cambria Business owners are making big bucks. Looks can be deceiving. Do we not know that you cannot/should not judge a book by its cover?
Shame on you small business judgers.
As it is written, ‘No good host would insult a guest.’ Likewise, any good guest should be sensitive enough to the limitations and generosity of the region one is visiting. In the desert a bucket of water will wash what needs washed. After four years of serious drought throughout California, coupled with extreme disproportionate demands, no one should have to ‘begrudge’ another. They should have the good sense and common courtesy to exercise restraint. Who, on earth, would offer, in their own home, to unnecessarily strip and wash sheets every day. Do we simply disregard what was expended to irrigate landscape, or to fill the pool, not to mention all of the spas? I am quite aware of how hard individuals have to work in this community to keep it all running, with long hours, and, for many, a very limited return. And, if you are a resident, bailing bath and kitchen water to keep the potted plants alive isn’t fun. I, being an intended quest, enjoy travel, meeting fine souls, sharing great food and experiencing the landscape. Rising to an occasion and meeting needs is what community is about. Cambria is a blended community, residential, business and guests, alike. All this old gal can say is, grow up, play nice in the sandbox, and get the job done. Some things just are not very becoming. They look ugly to children, discouraging to old folks, are demoralizing to those with families, and generally are not very inviting to the rest of the state, and beyond. Finally, if one does not care to educate one’s self, it might be wiser to not draw conclusions. This is also written.
The fact of the matter is the Coastal Commission in 1981, issued Permit No. 428-10 to the CCSD,which reserved 20% of the existing water allowed the district under their current water appropriative rights permit, for visitor servicing and coastal dependant resources. If you do the math, any new water source the district was to implement would have to meet the demands of its district and the Coastal Commission’s edict before the CCC would allow more than 5250 residential connections. What is amazing is that the unlimited new source of water from the proposed desal plant must mitigate the “growth inducing effects” of the project per CEQA. The build out reduction plan is a implemented mitigation measure. So lets do the math!
Coastal Development Permit No. 428-10 along with the updated LCP conditions:
5250 water/sewer connections less 20% for commerecial/visitor serving, capped at 4650 residential connections per the CCSD mitigation measures required under CEQA, equals the existing users plus the CCSD wait list, along with “few” (very few) unallocated meters for the land trusts to sell, ultimately leaves the existing vacant land owners out in the cold.
UnClog Cambria knows what the truth really is, and the vacant lots will have to be purchased now with the District Water Plan is adopted, is being implemented, requiring the buildout reduction plan under the Local Coastal Plan update. While the existing users of Cambria may not truely know that this is the factual situation, the county, CCSD, and the Coastal Commission do know it. They just don’t know how and who are going to pay for it. Let’s see if the truth will set you free, because my lot is by no means free!
Private property rights must be compensated when it is not for the public good, and the purchase of vacant land under a ‘special assessment” must be site specific under the Silicon Valley supreme court ruling. So unless the county, state, or CCSD goes on record for which lots are taken, this will have to be resolved in the courts, and probably not to everyone’s liking.
As a realtor, I find it appalling that the county does not disclose to the vacant lot owners or potential land purchasers the true facts relating to any vacant lot not on the district’s wait list, as to the ability for it to develope under the new legislative intent of the LCP and the development contraints under the CCSD Water Master Plan.
Is it any wonder that the distrust of the CCSD and the county is so prevelent in your community.