Actually, Due to Coastal Commission Restrictions, owners of these units are limited to occupancy ranging from 60 to 90 days a year depending on if they are ocean front or near the road and may (are encouraged) to rent them out the rest of the year.
The Lowe's Resort folks have had to work very hard to get approval from the city of Palos Verde to build. Once they had that, they had to get the Coastal Commission to approve it too. The hotel is required to offer activities to encourage day use by locals. Lowe's has modified its plans somewhat as the approval process took so long that construction cost escalated and they had to redesign the hotel from, all rooms with an ocean view, to only half have an ocean view as it is cheaper to build.
There will be public showers and restrooms as well as a snack bar about half way back up the hill. Lowe's Representatives were by the way clueless about the site being a heavily utilized SCUBA dive destination. I took some liberties and shared with them some photos that were less than 7 days old taken by one of the regular underwater photographers at OML. I also assured them the site was used most weeks if conditions permitted and was heavily photographed underwater providing excellent pre-construction documentation as to conditions underwater. The city even asked for our input on where we wanted the public shower and restroom, in the parking lot or by the beach. The parking lot will be a tad further back owning for the need to make the incline comply with the ADA.
An effort was made to inform the SCUBA diving community about the public hearings with the Palos Verde City Council and after that the California Coastal Commission hearings. The PV City council was very tolerant of non-residents coming to put in their two cents on protecting this treasured site. We, the SCUBA diving community, should have been at every meeting in large numbers. Sadly we were not. That was our opportunity to speak out in strong numbers to protect our dive site and to have our input into shaping the development that is now under construction. If you attended the meetings you know some of them were downright entertaining, others (far too many) were a real snooze. But we needed to be there just the same. Some nights were a waste of time, other, like the night Lowe's proposed putting in a sand beach to replace the cobblestone beach, were not.
