Sea View Hotel given thumbs up
By Dolores Quintana
The City of Malibu has given rare approval to a new hotel along Pacific Coast Highway.
Malibu will have a new hotel at 22729-22741 Pacific Coast Highway called the Sea View Hotel. Developer Norm Haynie has been trying to get approval from the city for roughly five years or since 2016 and in an atypical decision, the City of Malibu has finally given the go ahead for the hotel, but only with a number of concessions from the developer as reported by Urbanize Los Angeles.
The boutique hotel would have 39 rooms in total, with a new terraced three story building that would contain 17 rooms that would face the highway and a second building to the north that would repurpose a former office building into the remaining 22 rooms. The hotel would have a spa, parking for 91 automobiles, and a restaurant on the ground floor. Each of the seventeen rooms would have a balcony and the building to the north would have a roof deck for all of the guests to use.
The site was formerly a gas station and is near the so-called “Billionaires Beach” and the Malibu Pier. Part of the deal to get the approval, which is very rare for Malibu, was that the developer install a 20 inch check valve “that would increase water flows in the existing water main during emergency events.” according to the Malibu Times. The Malibu Times also called the building a “recognizable eyesore” which might have factored into the City Council’s yes vote.
But the developer Haynie said that the city might have killed the hotel due to the restrictions on large gatherings or events through TUPs or Temporary Use Permits as quoted by The Malibu Times. The hotel will only be allowed 6 TUPs per year. A TUP will not be necessary if the number of people at the gathering does not exceed the hotel’s capacity for guests and the restaurant is closed to the public. The Malibu Times also reports that parking was another issue and approval comes with the provision that “all vehicles other than vehicles owned by hotel employees must be valet parked.”
Norm Haynie believes that these concessions might make it difficult for him to sell the hotel to an operating company when it is complete.
