OCEANSIDE – After negotiating with a condominium homeowners' association for years, the Oceanside City Council is poised on Wednesday to sell the land under Marina Towers, the tallest building in North County.
The city owns the land. The homeowners' association owns the 17-story building that overlooks Oceanside Harbor.
In addition to paying the $5 million sale price, the association has promised to spend $500,000 over the next seven years on exterior improvements to the building, built in the mid-1970s.
A city staff report says the city can use the money to build a new fire station.
The report says the sale price has been calculated by figuring the income from payments if the association continued to lease the land until the end of its current agreement in 2036.
The council's public hearing on the proposal is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 300 N. Coast Highway.
The proposed deal requires the homeowners' association to pay for delays and legal fees stemming from litigation or appeals to the state Coastal Commission.
Marco Gonzalez, an attorney for the Surfrider Foundation, said Friday that he will appeal.
Gonzalez said he won't attend Wednesday's meeting but will take his case directly to the commission, whose staff has opposed the sale of the land in the past.
Surfrider opposes the sale of any publicly owned land in the beach area.
Lawyers for the homeowners' association have argued that the commission shouldn't care because there's no change in the use of the land.
To complete the deal, the city has to move some lot lines so all of the one-acre parcel it is selling is free of tidelands, which can't be sold. That lot-line adjustment is a technicality that is subject to appeal to the Coastal Commission.
Negotiations for sale of the land to the homeowners' group began 16 years ago, died out and began again in earnest in 2004.
Carolyn Krammer, co-founder of the Citizens for the Preservation of Parks and Beaches, said her group will keep fighting the sale.
“It's a gift of public funds,” Krammer said, because with 67 condos worth up to $1 million each, the property is worth more than $5 million.
“We're all getting ripped off,” Krammer said.
Another opponent, Oceanside resident Donald Cheetham, echoed Krammer's gift-of-public-funds comments and said the sale price is one-twentieth of what the property is worth.
On the other side, Harold Kutler, a 16-year resident of Marina Towers, said the deal is a win for the city and the homeowners.
“In today's real estate market, property (value) keeps going down,” Kutler said. “It's almost a free fall. I think the city is getting a good price for it, and it's a good deal for us, too.”
Lola Sherman: (760) 476-8241; lola.sherman@uniontrib.com
