By: DARRYN BENNETT - Staff Writer
March 13, 2008

VALLEY CENTER — A 12-story, $85 million high-roller hotel that Valley View Casino officials have proposed to build this year will not be a welcome addition to this small, unincorporated community east of Escondido, some planning group members said this week.

Valley View Casino opened in 2001 and sits above North Lake Wohlford Road, about a half-mile from Valley Center Middle School.

The San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians, which owns the casino, released a report last month that features details of the hotel and how it would affect everything from traffic and noise to the environment.

Tribal officials have scheduled a public hearing on the project for 6 tonight at the casino, 16300 Nyemii Pass Road.

The Valley Center Community Planning Group, a land-use advisory panel for the county Board of Supervisors, didn’t take a position on the hotel proposal during its meeting Monday. Most members said, however, that the hotel would be too tall, look outdated and add too much traffic on roads that are already congested.

“(The hotel) is just a monolith,” said planning group member Keith Robertson.

All 161 rooms planned for the new hotel would be reserved as freebies — or “comps” — for the casino’s biggest gamblers. Building a hotel to give away rooms to patrons who frequent Valley View will help limit traffic on backcountry roads leading to the casino, Joe Navarro, the casino’s president, told planners Monday night.

“Our studies determined there’s no traffic impact” because gamblers who regularly visit the casino will stay overnight at the hotel rather than traveling back and forth, Navarro said.

John Snyder, the county public works director who negotiates with tribes, said Wednesday that the traffic impact is “underestimated” in the tribe’s study. He estimated that the hotel would generate three daily car trips per room, or 483 daily trips.

County officials said they will send a letter to tribal leaders this week with suggestions for limiting the negative impacts that the hotel could have on the community, although Snyder said he was skeptical that traffic issues could be easily resolved.

“It’s not quite as obvious what can be done this time,” he said, referring to last year, when the tribe paid $6 million to widen a stretch of Valley Center Road to help ease traffic when it expanded its casino.

Moreover, under San Pasqual’s tribal-state compact, the tribe doesn’t need county approval to build the hotel because it’s not considered to be a gambling expansion, Snyder said.

Planning group Chairman Oliver Smith said that traffic is a big concern, but that he’s also worried about noise, light pollution and aesthetics.

“(The casino) sits up on a hill and I see it every time I go out in the morning to get my paper,” he said. “This thing is going to be a really big hotel in the middle of a pretty rural area and it won’t fit in.”

Navarro told Valley Center residents Monday that the tribe’s main goal is to run a successful casino, but that the tribe also wants to be “good neighbors.”

Tribal officials said they plan to have a final study ready this month addressing public concerns, and hope to break ground on the hotel in May.

– Contact staff writer Darryn Bennett at (760) 740-5420 or dmbennett@nctimes.com.
(c) North County Times

Posted on March 13th, 2008 by hunwut
Filed under: Gaming, Hotel & Resorts, Reservations