550 CALIFORNIA STREET, SUITE 1200
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104
T: (415) 552-7272 F: (415) 552-5816
www.smwlaw.com
GABRIEL M.B. ROSS
Attorney
[email protected]
April 21, 2026
Via Electronic Mail
Members of the City Council
c/o Laura Campagnolo, City Clerk
City of San Clemente
910 Calle Negocio
San Clemente, CA 92673
E-Mail: [email protected]
Re: Supplement to Appeal Justification for Hanson Hotel (1801 N. El Camino Real); Agenda Item 8A, De Novo Appeal Hearing of Public Hearing Project 25-323, Development Permit 25-324, and
Conditional Use Permit 25-329
Dear Councilmembers:
On behalf of UNITE HERE Local 11 (“Local 11” or “Appellant”), we respectfully submit this supplemental justification of the appeal filed September 2, 2025 (“Appeal”) of the City of San Clemente (“City”) Planning Commission’s August 20, 2025 approvals of Development Permit No. 25-324 and Conditional Use Permit 25-329 (collectively, “Entitlements”) and associated findings under the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”), concerning the proposed Hanson Hotel (“the Project”).
Local 11, through its counsel the Law Office of Jordan R. Sisson, previously submitted extensive comments in opposition to the Project approvals in its appeal justification dated September 2, 2025 (“Appeal Letter”). The Appeal Letter identified serious deficiencies in the Planning Commission’s approvals of the Entitlements and the Project’s CEQA findings which merited denial of the permits. The City has failed to address the concerns identified in the Appeal Letter, in many cases failing to respond at all. This supplemental letter fully incorporates by reference the Appeal Letter and all exhibits thereto.
In addition, the City has introduced several new justifications for the Project approvals, none of which resolve the Project’s inadequacies under CEQA, the Attachment 5
City Council
April 21, 2026
City’s General Plan, and the California Coastal Act (“Coastal Act”).1 It also fails to so much as mention a critical new development: the apparently unauthorized removal of vegetation on the Project site, including native coastal sage scrub, in January 2026.2 The Project as proposed will likely have significant, adverse effects on the natural and human environment in the City. It could result in potentially devastating effects to special-status species and protected habitats in the Marblehead/Sea Summit open space preserve while generating significant local traffic and noise. This should be unsurprising. The Project site is on one of the only mixed use-zoned parcels in the City that directly adjoins an open space area. It is possibly the only mixed use parcel in the City that is adjacent to Coastal Act-protected Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area (“ESHA”). And there is a strong possibility that the site itself meets the criteria to be deemed ESHA by the California Coastal Commission (“Coastal Commission”), which would preclude essentially all development.
The City must therefore take exceptional care to ensure that development of the site, if it is appropriate at all, avoids impacting these sensitive resources. Because the City has failed to address these critical questions and recent developments, the City should grant the Appeal and withhold approving the Entitlements until the applicant prepares a full environmental impact report (“EIR”) and demonstrates consistency with applicable General Plan and Coastal Act policies.
I. The City cannot find that the Project is “exempt” from CEQA under CEQA Guidelines section 15183 because that section is not a CEQA exemption.
As the Appeal Letter discussed, the Project cannot evade further CEQA review by relying on a mitigated negative declaration from a previous development proposal for the 1 The agenda for the appeal hearing was released on April 15, 2026, allowing less than a week to review the thousand-page long CEQA findings document prior to the April 21, 2026 deadline for written comments. Our comments here provide an overview of the document’s deficiencies, while Local 11 reserves the right to submit further oral comments at the hearing. See San Clemente Municipal Code § 17.12.140.E (body hearing appeal may consider new evidence and issues outside those raised in the appeal document).
2 The factual details of this vegetation removal are outlined in the letter submitted to the Council on April 15, 2026 by the California Native Plant Society (“CNPS Letter”), attached hereto as Attachment 1. We have separately attached photos depicting the vegetation removal as Attachment 2.
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April 21, 2026
Project site because conditions have changed. Agenda Packet 3 (“AP”) 64, 69-70. Nor can the City find that the Project is exempt from CEQA under a Class 32 categorical exemption, because, as the City admits, the Project’s purported lack of significant impacts results from future project-specific mitigation measures. AP 70. The City has apparently abandoned these arguments, because it now asserts that it is “not relying on the 1998 Mitigated Negative Declaration or a Class 32 categorical exemption.” AP 7.
Instead, the staff report now recommends the Council find the Project “exempt” from CEQA pursuant to CEQA Guidelines4 section 15183 because the Project is allegedly consistent with the allowable density for its parcel under the City’s General Plan and its accompanying Program EIR (“General Plan EIR”). AP 8. The proposed Council resolution too includes findings that the Project is “exempt” from CEQA under this section. AP 11-12.
The City cannot find this, or any, project “exempt” from CEQA under this provision. Section 15183 is not an exemption. Rather, it allows certain projects that are consistent with an adopted general plan to rely on prior environmental review when, and only when, the agency demonstrates that the effects of the project were adequately analyzed in the prior EIR and that the project will not result in project-specific significant effects that are peculiar to the project or its site. CEQA Guidelines § 15183(a). It imposes an affirmative obligation on the lead agency to demonstrate, based on substantial evidence in the record, that the project’s environmental effects were adequately analyzed in the prior EIR and that no project-specific significant effects peculiar to the site exist.
As discussed below, the record lacks substantial evidence to qualify this Project for streamlined review.
II. The Project does not qualify for streamlined review under CEQA Guidelines section 15183 because there is no demonstration of consistency with the Coastal LUP.
Having accepted that the Project is subject to CEQA, the City attempts to truncate its environmental review using CEQA Guidelines section 15183. That streamlining provision only applies to projects that “are consistent with the development density 3 Citations herein to the “Agenda Packet” are to the bates numbered pages of the Agenda Report for the April 21, 2026 City Council hearing on this Appeal. 4 Citations herein to the “CEQA Guidelines” are to Title 14, sections 15000 et seq. of the California Code of Regulations.
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established by existing zoning, community plan, or general plan policies for which an EIR was certified.” CEQA Guidelines § 15183(a).
The City does not, and cannot, make such a finding here. The General Plan EIR determined that development under the General Plan would not conflict with Coastal Act policies for biological resource protection because the City would implement the Coastal Act’s resource protection policies through a Coastal Land Use Plan (“Coastal LUP”), which was yet to be adopted. See General Plan DEIR at 5.3-34, -36. As a result, the General Plan EIR never actually studied how projects might conflict with the Coastal LUP.
The General Plan EIR thus deferred CEQA review of future projects’ impacts on ESHA. An EIR must discuss potential impacts to areas designated as ESHA under the Coastal Act. Banning Ranch Conservancy v. City of Newport Beach (2017) 2 Cal.5th 918, 941. Even development that is merely adjacent to ESHA triggers statutory mitigation obligations. Pub. Res. Code § 30240(b) (development “adjacent to [ESHA] shall be sited and designed to prevent impacts which would significantly degrade those areas”). ESHA-adjacent development thus must be carefully analyzed for impacts on ESHA.
The Project site here is clearly adjacent to an area identified in the General Plan EIR as ESHA, and may actually qualify as ESHA itself, as further discussed below and in Local 11’s earlier Appeal Letter. See AP 61-62; General Plan at p. 167, fig. C-2. The City cannot rely on the General Plan EIR’s finding of consistency with applicable land use policies that protect ESHA, because those policies did not exist when the General Plan was certified. As such, the City cannot rely on the General Plan EIR to restrict the scope of its CEQA review under Guidelines section 15183.
The City also makes no findings, and sets forth no evidence, that the Project is consistent with the development restrictions contained in General Plan Coastal Element Policies C-2.05 and C-2.10. Those policies directly require the City to protect ESHA according to the more specific dictates of its certified Coastal LUP, as further described in Section V below.
Instead, the City dismisses this issue with two conclusory statements, both of which are incorrect. First, it says that the General Plan EIR already determined that buildout in the area would not cause a significant impact by conflicting with Coastal Act policies. AP 237. But the EIR found no significant impact only “[u]pon implementation of regulatory requirements and standard conditions of approval,” including the local coastal program. General Plan DEIR at 5.3-36 to -37. This finding leaves open the possibility that, as here, a future project could be inconsistent with those coastal policies City Council
April 21, 2026
and thereby cause a significant impact. Second, the City asserts that the Project site is “not located within the canyon ESHAs” so its ESHA policies do not apply. AP 244.
Setting aside that the Project site may well qualify as ESHA, this assertion does not account for the Coastal LUP’s limits on development in ESHA-adjacent areas.
These include clear density limits, such as maintaining a 100-foot development buffer around ESHA, and confining development adjacent to ESHA buffers to lowimpact land uses. See Coastal LUP at 4-42 to 4-43 (Policies RES-54, -57, -59, -60).
Where the City does discuss consistency with the Coastal LUP, it skips any analysis of ESHA-related development restrictions. AP 307-13.
Because the City does not discuss whether the Project is consistent with these General Plan policies, it cannot support its finding that the Project is consistent with the policies covered by the General Plan EIR, as is required for streamlined review under section 15183.
III. The City’s analysis of impacts to biological resources does not meet its obligations under CEQA Guidelines § 15183.
For the City to rely on the General Plan EIR it would need to undertake CEQA review of any previously unanalyzed or site-specific factors. The City’s record does not show any such review. The City entirely ignores the potential conflicts between the proposed Project and its Coastal Zone ESHA management policies. These policies, adopted after the General Plan EIR was certified, were “not analyzed as significant effects” in that EIR, and relate to “potentially significant off-site impacts” not discussed in that EIR. CEQA Guidelines § 15183(b)(2)-(3). They are plainly within the scope of the City’s CEQA review obligations under section 15183.
Nonetheless, the initial study goes out of its way to find that conflicts with resource-protection policies are less than significant.5 AP 238. To justify this finding, it simply says that the Project site is not in coastal canyon ESHA, and that adherence to existing City regulations would not conflict with the Coastal Zone. AP 244. As discussed in Section II, however, the City’s Coastal LUP contains several policies on ESHAadjacent development that conflict with the Project. These policies are incorporated into the City’s General Plan. The City is obligated to analyze these potential conflicts and identify mitigation for any impacts. Failing to do so violates CEQA’s disclosure obligations even under a streamlined analysis.
5 The City is actually inconsistent on whether it characterizes this potential impact as “less than significant,” see AP 238, or “no impact,” see AP 244-45.
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April 21, 2026
IV. In light of recent vegetation removal at the Project site, CEQA requires a new biological resources analysis.
The City also cannot approve the Project as proposed because it is not operating on current information. An agency’s decision not to update the environmental baseline in light of conditions that changed during the preparation of a CEQA document must be supported by substantial evidence. Citizens for Open Government v. City of Lodi (2012) 205 Cal.App.4th 296, 318-19.
Here, the vegetation removal described in the CNPS Letter has fundamentally shifted the environmental baseline with respect to biological resources. The letter describes removal of nearly all the vegetation in January 2026, including a native coastal sage scrub community. See CNPS Letter at 1; see also Attachment 2. However, the City continues to rely on a biological resource assessment whose field surveys concluded in December 2025. AP 456. That the site may now appear more disturbed because of this vegetation removal actually underscores the City’s need to update its analysis to rely on current, accurate baseline information. The coastal sage scrub community documented on the site has been disturbed before and could easily be growing back during construction.
Effects of these grow-back conditions on the frequency with which the special-status California gnatcatcher (which has previously been observed on the site), Crotch’s bumble bee, or other protected species may visit the site are unknown and unstudied. Because the vegetation has ecological continuity with the Sea Summit preserve, see CNPS Letter at 1, the recent vegetation removal may affect wildlife movement patterns in unanticipated ways and contribute to new offsite impacts.
Moreover, “removal” of “major vegetation” is “development” under the Coastal Act requiring a Coastal Development Permit (“CDP”). Pub. Res. Code § 30106. If a CDP was not obtained for this removal, the Coastal Commission may impose penalties for a violation of the act, including potentially requiring restoration of this habitat, which would further change the environmental setting. Id. § 30811. We will provide the Commission with a copy of this letter and a request that they investigate the matter.
In light of the change in conditions resulting from the vegetation removal and the serious possibility of a Coastal Commission restoration order that further changes natural conditions, the City lacks sufficient information to make informed CEQA findings. To approve the Project nonetheless would be an abuse of its discretion.
City Council
April 21, 2026
V. The Project as proposed likely violates the Coastal Act and the City’s General Plan.
The Project is directly adjacent to Coastal Commission-designated ESHA.
Approving it as proposed would therefore likely conflict with several policies in the City’s General Plan Coastal Element and associated Coastal LUP.
These include:
• General Plan Policy NR-1.03, prohibiting grading and development in “sensitive habitats,” which per the City’s initial study includes the coastal sage scrub at the Project site (AP 236, 239), “unless no feasible project alternative exists which reduces environmental impacts to less than significant levels, or it is replaced with habitat of equivalent value, as acceptable to the City Council” • General Plan Policy C-2.05, “restricting the encroachment of development, incompatible land uses and sensitive habitat disturbance into designated coastal canyons and coastal bluff areas, consistent with the Local Coastal Program” • General Plan Policy C-2.10, “restricting development in ESHAs consistent with the Local Coastal Program and the California Coastal Act.” The Coastal LUP in turn imposes restrictions on ESHA-adjacent development including buffer zones and intensity limits. For example:
• LUP Policy RES-54, stating that a “100-foot buffer, shall be provided around all ESHA” or “the largest feasible buffer” where there is existing development • LUP Policy RES-57, requiring “ESHA buffers [to] be maintained exclusively with native vegetation to serve as transitional habitat”
• LUP Policy RES-59, requiring “[w]here feasible, [to] confine development adjacent to ESHAs to low impact land uses, such as open space and passive recreation”
• LUP Policy RES-62, requiring “mitigation in the form of habitat creation or substantial restoration for allowable impacts to ESHA and other sensitive resources that cannot be avoided through the implementation of siting and design alternatives”
• LUP Policy RES-65, requiring open space dedication in “conjunction with new development” that “preserve[s] ESHA, buffers, and all mitigation areas” City Council
April 21, 2026
Approval of the Project as proposed violates the City’s obligation that development be consistent with General Plan policies. Orange Citizens for Parks & Recreation v. Superior Court (2016) 2 Cal.5th 141, 153 (“The propriety of virtually any local decision affecting land use and development depends upon consistency with the applicable general plan and its elements.”). The Entitlements cannot be legally approved.
Furthermore, as the Appeal Letter notes, the Project as proposed appears inconsistent with the Coastal Act’s and the General Plan’s policies on lower-cost overnight accommodations (“LCOAs”) because it lacks enforceable conditions of approval to ensure that these policies are implemented. AP 65-69. The City rejoins that it “defers to the Coastal Commission’s established authority and evolving standards to ensure compliance with Coastal Act requirements.” AP 6. The City cannot dodge its responsibility like this. The City’s own General Plan requires that it “where feasible, provide low cost overnight accommodations.” General Policy C-1.14. The applicant’s own Project proposal shows that LCOAs are feasible. Unless the City ensures that these accommodations are provided, the approval will be inconsistent with the General Plan and thus invalid. The Coastal Commission is likely to agree. The City should impose a condition of approval mandating the LCOAs now and spare the taxpayers the expense of further considering a project that may need to be substantially modified.
Likewise, denying the permits would be the more prudent course of action in light of the fact that the Coastal Commission may well designate the Project site as ESHA. See Douda v. California Coastal Commission (2008) 159 Cal.App.4th 1181, 1194 (Coastal Commission can designate areas as ESHA when it is the CDP-issuing agency). ESHA is “any area in which plant or animal life or their habitats are either rare or especially valuable because of their special nature or role in an ecosystem and which could be easily disturbed or degraded by human activities and developments.” Pub. Res. Code § 30107.5.
As the City’s own biological resources assessment notes, the federally threatened California gnatcatcher has been observed on the Project site over multiple field visits during 2025. AP 461; see also Coastal LUP at 4-7 (noting that the Coastal Commission designated “all areas that were used by the . . . coastal California gnatcatcher” as ESHA within the Marblehead/Sea Summit area); id. at 4-13 (“Any Coastal Sage Scrub occupied by the Coastal California gnatcatcher or other rare species will qualify as ESHA because of the especially valuable role it plays in the ecosystem.”). Field visits also noted an already-disturbed Menzies’s golden bush scrub community (designated as sensitive by the state), stating that “mitigation for its loss may be necessary.” AP 459. And the Project site is adjacent to a designated ESHA area that the Coastal Commission specifically made a reserve for the sensitive Blochman’s dudleya. AP 64.
The observed presence of rare and sensitive species on and near the site, clear threat of disturbance or degradation, and its adjacency to protected ESHA make the site a City Council
April 21, 2026
strong candidate to be designated as ESHA. This would make the Project impossible as proposed, because only land uses “dependent” on protected “habitat values” may be allowed within designated ESHA. Pub. Res. Code § 30240(a). As such, the City should not approve the Entitlements until it has the information to be more certain that the Coastal Commission will not designate the Project site as ESHA.
VI. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, Local 11 respectfully requests that the City grant the Appeal and withhold approving the Entitlements for the Project until, at minimum:
• The applicant prepares a full EIR consistent with CEQA, which robustly analyzes potential impacts to biological resources, including due to conflict with applicable General Plan and Coastal LUP policies on ESHA-adjacent development, and which is reflective of the current state of the Project site after the January 2026 vegetation removal;
• The applicant modifies the Project to be consistent with applicable Coastal LUP policies for ESHA-adjacent areas and includes information demonstrating to the City’s satisfaction that the Project site is not eligible to be designated as ESHA; • The City conditions any approval of the Entitlements on an enforceable commitment to uphold Coastal Act and General Plan LCOA policies as discussed in the Appeal Letter, and;
• The applicant demonstrates that the Project is consistent with the City’s General Plan, including its Coastal Element policies on natural resources protection.
Without these changes, the Project cannot be legally approved.
Very truly yours,
SHUTE, MIHALY & WEINBERGER LLP
Gabriel M.B. Ross
City Council
April 21, 2026
Cc: Rick Loeffler, Mayor
Steve Knoblock, Mayor Pro Tem
Victor Cabral, Council Member
Mark Enmeier, Council Member
Zhen Wu, Council Member
Andrew Willis, Southern CA Enforcement Manager, California Coastal Commission (by email and U.S. mail)
Attachments:
Attachment 1 – Letter from Orange County Chapter, California Native Plant Society to San Clemente City Council (April 15, 2026)
Attachment 2 – Photos depicting vegetation removal
Attachment 1
To conserve California native plants and their natural habitats, today and into the future, through science, education, stewardship, gardening, and advocacy OCCNPS.org | P.O. Box 54891, Irvine, CA 92619-4891
San Clemente City Council
[email protected]
[email protected]
15 April 2026
Dear Mayor and Members of the City Council,
On behalf of the Orange County Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (OCCNPS), we submit the following comments regarding the proposed Hansen Hotel project at 401 El Camino Real, scheduled for public hearing on April 21, 2026.
OCCNPS previously submitted a detailed comment letter to the City on August 26, 2025, documenting the presence of a disturbed but functioning coastal sage scrub plant community on the project site. That assessment was based on a field visit and botanical survey conducted by qualified biologists and included a species inventory demonstrating that native coastal sage scrub species dominated the site, despite some disturbance. These findings directly contradicted the conclusion in the City’s staff report that the site lacked sensitive biological resources and supported the project’s claimed exemption from environmental review. A copy of our August 26, 2025 comment is attached.
We reiterate our fundamental concern that the site, due to its vegetation, ecological function, and direct adjacency to the extensive Sea Summit open space preserve, may qualify as Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area (ESHA) under the California Coastal Act. The assertion that the site is “substantially surrounded by urban uses” is not supported by the actual landscape context, in which a significant portion of the site borders conserved natural habitat with ecological continuity.
Since submission of our August 2025 letter, a significant and troubling development has occurred. In January 2026, OCCNPS was notified that all vegetation on the site had been removed. A subsequent site visit confirmed that the property had been completely cleared to bare soil, eliminating all previously documented native plant cover, including coastal sage scrub vegetation.
This action raises serious concerns. Vegetation removal and site clearing constitute “development” under the California Coastal Act and may require a Coastal Development Permit (CDP), particularly where sensitive habitat resources are present or may be present. At this time, we have been unable to identify any approved CDP, waiver, or other coastal authorization for this activity through publicly available records, including the California Coastal Commission’s permitting portal. Furthermore, City records indicate that the project’s discretionary permits remain pending.
The removal of vegetation under these circumstances appears to have occurred prior to completion of environmental review and may have altered or eliminated biological resources that are central to determining the project’s impacts. This raises substantial concerns regarding compliance with both the California Coastal Act and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and whether the environmental baseline for the project has been improperly modified.
Importantly, the absence of vegetation today does not negate the documented presence of coastal sage scrub habitat prior to clearing. Our biologist records and photography confirm this vegetation and a disturbed coastal To conserve California native plants and their natural habitats, and increase understanding, appreciation, and horticultural use of native plants.
OCCNPS.org | P.O. Box 54891, Irvine, CA 92619-4891
sage scrub plant community. Sound environmental review must rely on accurate baseline conditions, not conditions resulting from recent disturbance.
Given these concerns, OCCNPS respectfully requests that the City of San Clemente take the following actions:
1. Deny approval of the Conditional Use Permit and Development Permit for the Hansen Hotel project unless and until full compliance with CEQA and the California Coastal Act is demonstrated;
2. Require preparation of a comprehensive biological assessment based on pre-disturbance conditions, including consideration of the site’s prior coastal sage scrub community and its potential qualification as ESHA;
3. Coordinate with the California Coastal Commission to determine whether unauthorized development, including vegetation removal, has occurred and to ensure appropriate regulatory oversight;
4. Require restoration of the site to its prior coastal sage scrub habitat, or to a condition of equal or greater ecological function, using locally native species appropriate to the region and consistent with adjacent conserved lands;
5. Ensure that any future project design, landscaping, and mitigation measures avoid the use of invasive or non-local plant species and instead support the long-term ecological integrity of the surrounding natural habitat.
The protection of coastal sage scrub habitat and its associated species is a matter of regional and statewide importance. The sequence of events at this site—particularly the removal of native vegetation during an active entitlement process—warrants careful scrutiny and a cautious approach.
We appreciate your consideration of these comments and respectfully urge the City to base its decision on sound science, accurate environmental baselines, and full compliance with applicable environmental laws. cc: CA Coastal Commission
Sincerely,
Ron Vanderhoff Elizabeth Wallace Laura Camp
Director and Plant Science Chair Co-President Co-President CNPS, Orange County Chapter
PO Box 54891, Irvine, CA 92619-4891
OCCNPS.org
[email protected]
Attachment 2