Last night over 80 people spoke to the City Council about the proposed Miramar Hotel redevelopment plans.

The project has been proposed by Ocean Avenue LLC, an affiliate of MSD Capital LLP, which is, in turn, owned by Michael and Susan Dell. They live in Austin, Texas and, with a fortune estimated at $15 billion, are said to be “among the richest people in the world.”

Over 1,000 people have joined the Save Santa Monica Coalition, which opposes the Miramar redevelopment on a variety of grounds, beginning with its plans to demolish everything on the 4+ acre site, but a portion of the oldest structure on the property and the landmarked Moreton Bay Fig tree, and replace it with a complex of large blocks that would double its size from about 250,000 square feet to 556,000 square feet. It is, the opponents say, too big and too tall, more Las Vegas than Santa Monica and architecturally mundane. They also object to its reduction of the number of hotel rooms, and the addition of 120 “luxury condos, aka “residential housing,” and the horrendous multiple impacts it would have on its neighbors and the ocean front as a whole.

Alan Epstein, spokesman for the Miramar project, and his cohorts began meeting with people whom he describes as “community leaders” in 201l, and a sizable number of them now call themselves “Friends of the Miramar.” They believe that the Miramar has been a valuable member of the community and that the proposed “new” Miramar will contribute even more to the community.

Both fans and opponents made their cases in a four-hour hearing before the Planning Commission on February 8. The Commissioners, in turn, were highly critical of the project, agreeing with opponents on most points. Though they had the authority to recommend to the Council that the Miramar group make some major changes in its plan before the City would agree to authorize negotiations on a Development Agreement,five of the seven Commissioners lost their nerve, and made no recommendation.

The City staff report that was delivered last night consisted of a very detailed description of the proposal, along with a series of rough sketches done by the Miramar group of four minor reconfigurations of the supersize building blocks.

For the most part, the comments of the ”Friends” were very nice, but they didn’t add much heat or light to the debate – except for the mercantile crowd who spoke of the need to pump up the action at the northern end of downtown Santa Monica, which the bigger, better Miramar, with its 6500 square feet of new “retail,” was sure to do.

The comments of the opponents were far more various, valuable and challenging. They questioned everything from the alleged “community benefits,” which are vague and paltry at best, to the “need” for the 120 condos to make the deal financially “viable.” They found the height and mass of the project excessive, and wondered whether the proposed 485 underground parking spaces would be adequate. They spoke at length of the mediocre, even somber architecture which has no place in this gorgeous, light-hearted beach town.

The opponents clearly out-numbered and out-classed the “friends” When all the speakers had been heard, the Council discussion began. It was fitful, vague and pointless. We are accustomed by now to the members’ chronic inability or unwillingness to do the only thing they are elected to do, which is represent us, but we continue to find their collective lack of understanding of the stakes of any given agenda item disturbing. Earlier in the evening, five of the seven voted blithely to move most of our older residents’ activities and programs from the spacious Senior Recreation Center in Palisades Park to that warren of nasty, little rooms in the Ken Edwards Center.

Their discussion of the Miramar project went nowhere – at length. Finally, Council member Kevin McKeown proposed that the City begin negotiations with the Miramar group with the proviso that it reduce the size of the project by 25 percent. His colleagues all shook their heads. No, that wouldn’t do. They didn’t say why. And so the Miramar Group got its way – for no reason at all.

Miramargeddon was a battle, now it’s a war.

NOTE: We have posted photos of a number of distinctive modern hotels. Radical as they may be, they are far more suitable in this gloriously idiosynscratic beach town than the Miramar’s stodgy, solemn remnant from another time and place. (Scroll down)