Last night in a 3-2 vote, the SLO City Council approved a proposed 102-room hotel project adjacent to Pappy McGregor’s, but not before placing a few more conditions on developers. Strong neighborhood opposition from a group dubbed the “San Luis Drive Area Advocates for Balanced Community Development” had been placing increased pressure to reduce the height of the project which was designed within the allowable height of the site. In what may be a sign of what’s to come, the neighborhood group worked to garner opposition to the hotel from other residential groups such as Monterey Heights and Alta Vista. Ahead of last night’s hearing, developers West Coast Management removed all balconies facing San Luis Creek and conducted additional studies to determine the impacts of noise and height on surrounding neighborhoods. In a last minute round of conversations this past weekend with neighborhood opponents, developers agreed to increase the height of a parking wall facing the creek from five to six feet, and add mature trees to the northern side of the Monday Club property as well as the back of the hotel to provide visual landscape screening. In alignment with the recently adopted LUCE standards for this main tourist corridor to the downtown, council members Carlyn Christianson, Dan Rivoire and John Ashbaugh moved approval of the hotel, with new conditions that the elevated parking area be fully enclosed, the vegetative screenings be created and no windows on the side facing the creek can be modified or converted to balconies in the future.