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Miramar and the Board of Supervisors
updated: Sep 03, 2012, 4:16 PM

By Edhat Subscriber

What is going on or not going on with Rick Caruso and the Board of Supervisors regarding the Miramar?

Comments in order of when they were received | (reverse order)

COMMENT 315681	2012-09-03 04:38 PM
They gave Caruso a huge tax break, Doreen Farr was the lone "NO" vote.
COMMENT 315683P	2012-09-03 04:45 PM
And he still has done nothing with that mess.
COMMENT 315688P	2012-09-03 05:00 PM
Wolf and Farr voted no to the multiyear tax giveaway ordinance. Caruso has now applied for the break and is working on an "agreement" with the County to see just how large of a gift of public funds one billionaire can get. The agreement will then go back to the Board for approval- if they can get four votes....
COMMENT 315690	2012-09-03 05:05 PM
Should have let Ty finish it. Would have been done and open for business.
COMMENT 315706P	2012-09-03 05:45 PM
Right on, 690! Caruso is "gonna take the money & run."
COMMENT 315711	2012-09-03 05:52 PM
What a shame that Mr. Warner wasn't given the chance to get this done, a local too. We treated the outsiders a lot more fair than locals on this one...too bad! What a mess this thing is, huge blight and rat trap.
COMMENT 315714	2012-09-03 05:55 PM
After 10 years, what's so hard about the Board of Supervisors revoking Mr. Caruso's building permits if he doesn't raze the derelict Miramar Hotel structures? Why give him a transit occupancy tax holiday at all? If the Miramar property sits there without buildings on it, it's a win for the neighborhood. If a new hotel is never built, not our problem.
COMMENT 315748	2012-09-03 06:33 PM
I agree with the last five comments.
COMMENT 315756P	2012-09-03 07:05 PM
Caruso has played this community brilliantly...lemmings like the Montecito Community and Salud Carbajal have gone in the tank for Slick Rick and have NOTHING to show for it. They need to give him an ultimatum and then pull the plug.
COMMENT 315759	2012-09-03 07:23 PM
He did play the game well....He was smart and waited until there was so much complaints about and eyesore that the city had to serve it up on a platter for him. There will be more concessions to come
COMMENT 315773P	2012-09-03 08:14 PM
So, how can we stop this total BS! Seriously, people. There has to be a way to say - "NO MORE!"
COMMENT 315774	2012-09-03 08:15 PM
765p, actually an awful lot of people in Montecito were vocally opposed to Caruso's plan and came out in force to protest what was happening. I can't call those people lemmings and neither should you. Salud Cabajal and Slick Rick, maybe. But don't make the mistake of saying that people in the local area where this dump has been left are happy or willing to go along with the plans as they had been set forth in the past. That's simply not true.
COMMENT 315780P	2012-09-03 08:31 PM
In other words, no one knows what is going on or what is going to happen next with Rick or his project!
COMMENT 315782P	2012-09-03 08:40 PM
780P - He ought to lose his project to the County for not following through on his part of the deal when he got the "free ride" in the tax dept!
BURNTTHISTLE	2012-09-03 08:53 PM
Mr. Warner was given 2 chances to get this done. When he purchaced the property the appoved permits were in place and ready to build. He decided he wanted to change these plans and got his new set of plans approved also. Then he decided to sell. He could have finished either set of his plans.
COMMENT 315794P	2012-09-03 09:42 PM
Perhaps the moral to this seemingly never ending story is that this site is not meant to hold a luxury hotel. Never was. Never will be. Caruso knows that....he is just trying to milk the country-bumpkin star crossed County officials for as much as he can.
COMMENT 315823	2012-09-04 07:15 AM
I believe, way back at the beginning, a local investment group sought to purchase the Miramar, but the "powers that be" we're starstruck by Ian Schrager, who began the long downward spiral...I really miss those blue roofs..kind of a sign to me after a long drive from SoCal that I was home.
COMMENT 315848	2012-09-04 08:02 AM
As usual people look only as far as their noses for the facts in the case. The critics only want what is in their interest with no regard for the circumstances or who pays for it.... so long as it is someone else. When Ty Warner gave up the development it was a clear indication that given market conditions the huge cost of development would not have yielded a satisfactory return on investment, if any. As a local who already owned a luxury oceanside resort hotel a few blocks down the beach who better to understand what the market could sustain? An argument could be made for not wanting competition for the Biltmore and a counter argument would be made for owning the competition. Yet is languishes. Whoever develops the Miramar out of pocket is going to take a bath financially. Which explains why so few have lined up to participate in or take over the project.
COMMENT 315855	2012-09-04 08:19 AM
Why can't the county condem the buildings? Demolish these health hazards.
FLICKA	2012-09-04 09:03 AM
855 has the right answer to the whole mess. Seems I remember Ty Warner gave it up because he'd had it with Montecito residents fighting him, holding up any plan he made and raising the cost of his projects astronomicly; the Coral Casino and even steps to the beach he wanted to put on his own property for the public. If the crap left on the Miramar property was ordered taken down it could sit there indefinately as vacant land. The B of S blew it when they let Schrager start the tear down w/o a bond of completion.
COMMENT 315876P	2012-09-04 09:06 AM
County planning does nothing to enforce codes in the average neighborhoods, always "working with" the violator to find ways to keep what they illegally constructed or did with their property. Why should it be any different in Montecito???
COMMENT 315878	2012-09-04 09:15 AM
When the hole at the bottom of State Street finally gets filled, the Miramar project might also get breathed back to life too. Why is County Supervisor District One re-electing Carbajal? Time to put people with business sense on the board of supervisors. Mega-million dollar operations controlling vast acres of county land and local development need far more than a handful of politically-correct do-gooder making this level of decisions.
COMMENT 315900P	2012-09-04 09:56 AM
The BOS thought they were oh so smart by giving Caruso the tax break for x amount of years. Except of course, the tax break only goes in to effect whenever the hotel opens (who knows in what decade it will finally open). The BOS need to revisit the tax break and put a date on when the tax break expires. That will speed things up considerably!
COMMENT 315946	2012-09-04 11:43 AM
This is the latest strategy used by developers. (Bill Levy's "La Entrada, the Carrillo Hotel hole in the ground until the Canary Hotel was constructed, the Fess Parker Hostel, etc. etc.) The developer submits plans and after a long process gets approval with various requirements, conditions and limitations, the developer really did not want or opposed in the planning process. The old site is allowed to deteriorate or remain unconstructed for years, with a wide variety of excuses. Then the developers, or one of many successor developers, comes back crying poor and using a host of excuses to evade original requirements and those conditions and restrictions get eliminated and they are even given a bonus gift of some kind at the taxpayers and citizens expense. Only then the project is back in a form to the liking of the developer, and maybe something gets built if all the favors and desired changes are exhausted.
COMMENT 316045	2012-09-04 03:24 PM
You forgot the part where the neglected, rat-infested holes get local residents to cry out anything is better than what is there, so just give the developer what he wants. It is a nicely finessed cross-ruff where time is on the side of the negligent landlord. Meanwhile, who exactly is paying how much every month to maintain Chapala One - the Inclusionary-Mandate Haunted House? When will that too finally deteriorate to get what it wants too? Or do we preserve it as it is, just to remind ourselves what bad city planning was inflicted by those elected who never should have been in the housing development business to start with.
COMMENT 316168	2012-09-04 07:44 PM
I told MONT JOURN years ago Rick was a TOTAL greenhorn when it comes to the hotel biz.
COMMENT 316496	2012-09-05 03:11 PM
Bet Montecito is sorry they gave Ty Warner such a hard time. Everything he touches - Biltmore, San Ysidro Ranch, Sea Center, etc., etc., has turned out just beautiful. The Miramar would have been restored in the same manner. He had even purchased the blue tiles...which Caruso sold off. I say Montecito earned the MESS!! and Caruso.

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