The Pacific Coast Hotel planned for the northwest corner of Highway 1 and West Grand Avenue in Grover Beach is back on track after the California Coastal Commission approved a coastal-development permit for the project.

But at this point, it's unclear if IGIT Inc. of Grover Beach, the company developing the hotel, will face the additional hurdle of a lawsuit filed last year by the North Grover Beach Neighborhood Alliance.

Ron Perkins, chief executive officer of IGIT, could not be reached by press time for comment on the next step in the development process or when construction might begin.

Commissioners granted the coastal-development permit, with conditions, during their meeting last Thursday in Oceanside, resolving two commissioners' appeal of the project's previous approval by the Grover Beach City Council.

A set of conditions recommended by the commission staff and agreed to by the developer resolved the issues raised in the appeal to the commissioners' satisfaction.

But those conditions did not satisfy all the concerns raised by the Neighborhood Alliance in a lawsuit filed last November at about the same time as the appeal.

That lawsuit was placed on hold pending the outcome of the Coastal Commission appeal.

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Neighborhood Alliance President Mike Wilson could not be reached for comment by press time, but last week he said the organization's full board of directors would have to decide if the lawsuit would be reactivated.

At that time, Wilson said the conditions imposed by the Coastal Commission did not address the 15-member group's concerns over traffic access, private ownership of the units, visual resource protection and density.

The hotel units will be privately owned but will be available for public rental when the owners are not using them, and conditions imposed by the Coastal Commission strictly limit owners' days of use.

But Wilson said although the Coastal Commission staff said the prohibition of private ownership would not apply in that case, the Neighborhood Alliance disagrees.

“The LCP essentially prohibits private ownership (in the coastal planned commercial zone),” Wilson said last week. “... There is nothing that we found (in the regulations) that would modify ownership in this area. It has to be publicly owned.”

The group also believes the hotel's 20 units violate the LCP's allowed density of 15 units per acre, and that the five commercial units should be included in the density calculation.

August 12, 2008