Residents near historic La Quinta Resort oppose plan to build new water slide
LA QUINTA, Calif. (KESQ) – Plans to bring a new water slide to the La Quinta Resort are being met with some pushback from nearby residents.
The slide is part of a renovation project the historic resort is developing at its main pool, which will include changes to the family pool, a spa area, a new water play structure, and the slide.
Proposed Site Plan at La Quinta Resort
The entire structure is set to measure about 34 feet at its tallest point, featuring two slides: one is at 22 feet tall, and the other is closer to 30 feet tall.
3D Rendering of water slide
La Quinta Resort held a listening session with its nearest neighboring community, the La Quinta Tennis Villas, where it showed the site plan and renderings of the proposed water slide.
Other communities nearby, though, like the Mountain Estates, said their opinion was not taken into account.
One resident of that community, Tom Maloney, shared a letter he wrote to the La Quinta City Council, where he outlined several of his concerns. In part, he wrote the following:
“The Resort is a wonderful property and we are fully supportive of the need to continue to invest and improve the property and its amenities. However, building a mini water park amidst a high-density neighborhood of town homes and single family homes is unconscionable. We were involved years ago in the successful effort to oppose a similar water park feature on the Resort property- only to have it resurface. The idea that a massive tower in excess of 34 feet would be built on the edge of the hotel property and the neighboring community makes no sense. The excessive noise generated by what amounts to a water park will create an environmental nuisance well beyond the Resort property.”
In an interview with News Channel 3, Meg Maloney added, “There’s no high rises anywhere along the property. And so that, combined with the noise, it’s just it’s not something, you know, – the resort is a very tranquil place and that would would not add to that environment at all.”
During the resort’s listening session with the Tennis Villas, they responded to several questions from residents about the added noise. The architect, Gary Houston, explained that it was a problem they had worked around by positioning both the kids’ play area and water slide in a way that would bounce noise back towards the resort, rather than into surrounding neighborhoods. The planners also added landscaping would help blend the water slide structure with the nearby architecture.
“Do you think that’s enough?” I asked Tom. With a shake of his head, he replied, “Candidly, I don’t think that’s enough.”
“Listen, kids get excited when they go down a slide and they should,” he continued. “[When] they are 30 feet in the air, that screaming is going to project across multiple hundreds of feet.”
We reached out to La Quinta Resort for comment and left a voicemail with the resort’s marketing team, but we did not hear back from them.
The City of La Quinta, though, confirmed in a statement to News Channel 3 that project approval had not yet been given to the resort to begin construction, despite the resort saying they planned to start construction in the fall.
“The project application has not been approved at this time and currently isn’t scheduled for planning commission or council review. The City has received public comments on this project and continues to encourage comment both in writing and in person at all public meetings. When the application is scheduled for a public hearing in the future, all comments will be considered.”City of La Quinta
We’ll continue monitoring this project and the pushback surrounding it. Be sure to stay with us for any new developments.
Click here to follow the original article.