Pebble Beach plan protects trees

MONTEREY, Calif., May 5 (UPI) -- Pebble Beach owners anticipate the California Coastal Commission will approve a more environmentally conscious plan to develop part of the oceanfront land.

After decades of environmental battles with the commission, Pebble Beach Co. owners Clint Eastwood, Arnold Palmer, former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth and other parties believe a new bid to build additional homes on the land will pass a Wednesday vote, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Ueberroth spent years discussing the commission's concerns -- an earlier project would have sacrificed 18,000 trees -- with Peter Douglas, the group's former executive director.

"I was able to talk about his views and his vision and ours, and in the end I think I found myself more on his side of the argument than I was on ours," Ueberroth said. "And that's on the merits. We had a commonality of loving the ocean, of growing up in the area."

The current plan would build a new 100-room hotel and restaurant at an old quarry site, add 140 rooms at the Lodge at Pebble Beach and Inn at Spanish Bay and construct 90 new homes. About 635 acres of rare Monterey pines would be permanently protected under what the Pebble Beach Co. owners are calling the last-ever development of the land.