Visitors to Park Are Told Not to Take a Hike

First came the guardhouse, then the guards and now the gates. The view up Malibu’s Serra Road these days looks more like a high-security entrance to an exclusive compound than a reception area for a public park.

The security measures are intended to keep trespassers and looky-loos out of a bucolic canyon dotted with multimillion-dollar estates, including those of Hollywood celebrities and at least one billionaire.

But they have caught the eye of state coastal and park officials, who say Serra Canyon homeowners have violated agreements with both agencies by denying public access to Malibu Lagoon State Beach hiking trails through the same Serra Road entry.

“The issue here is they’re excluding the public from public parkland,” said Pat Veesart, a California Coastal Commission enforcement officer. “Now when you drive up Serra Road you see a guardhouse and guards and swing-arm gates. The strong visual message the public receives is: ‘Don’t come in here; you’re not allowed.’ ”

In the latest twist in a 15-year dispute, the commission is preparing a citation against the Serra Canyon Property Owners Assn. for allegedly violating a 2003 development permit by denying public access to parkland and for installation of entry gates.

In addition, the homeowners have placed a sign to welcome the public to the state park in the wrong place -- in front of a homeless encampment, not at a nearby intersection on Pacific Coast Highway, officials maintain.

But attorney Sherman Stacey, who represents property owners in the 105-home community, said residents have followed state agreements and the law, erecting the gates under a permit from the city of Malibu and placing the trail entry sign where a state-approved local coastal plan says it should be.

“Serra Canyon homeowners have acted fairly and reasonably,” Stacey said.

The homeowners have been frustrated, he said, by years of trying to secure their community from intruders, following an auto accident by a drunk driver, who won nearly $1 million in insurance settlements after claiming the community’s private streets were substandard.

Agreements with the state have generally excluded drivers from the community’s private roads since 2003.

But Stacey confirmed that guards also have recently begun stopping hikers from passing the new gates and directing them to enter the park through a brushy area along the busy coastal highway. That’s because the state Department of Parks and Recreation has not lived up to a 2001 lawsuit settlement, he said, in which it agreed to build a small parking lot for public events and to construct a clearly marked trailhead to steer hikers and equestrians away from private homes and roadways.

“It’s been four years since the settlement,” he said, “and state parks has not put a nickel into improving this park for the public.”

Kathleen Franklin, state parks superintendent for the Santa Monica Mountains area, said a key provision in the lawsuit settlement was that the public could reach Malibu Lagoon via Serra Road, which is partly owned by the agency. She said access cannot be unilaterally denied by homeowners just because budget shortfalls have kept the state from building trailheads and a parking lot.

The Malibu Lagoon trails are well-established and appear in hiking guides, she said. “Understand, people have been hiking there for years without trailheads.”

Some who have hiked Malibu Lagoon and upstream to Malibu Creek State Park, which ties into a vast trail system in the Santa Monica Mountains, said they are outraged by what they consider a denial of their rights by Serra Canyon homeowners.

“Malibu Creek is one of the most scenic areas and beautiful creeks in Southern California,” said Mark Abramson, stream manager of Malibu Creek for Heal the Bay, an environmental group in Santa Monica. “But some of the richest people in the world live in there, and they’re using this state park as their own personal park, and not providing access to anyone else.”

The Serra Canyon fight is a classic clash between public access and private property rights that has played out all over California since 1972, when voters approved creation of an agency to control coastal development and protect public access rights.

The 27-mile Malibu coastline has had more than its share of those disputes, officials said.

“It’s not a big problem statewide: The ones I really think of are in Malibu,” said Linda Locklin, access manager for the Coastal Commission. “In this case, the issue is not only access to the state park but to the whole Santa Monica Mountains trail system that’s being blocked.”

The Serra Canyon community, founded by a pioneer Malibu family, has been home to celebrities such as Charles Bronson, George C. Scott and Mel Gibson. Singer Britney Spears and director James Cameron own estates there. Oracle Corp. Chief Executive Larry Ellison recently bought a property for about $20 million.

The Serra Canyon dispute began in 1990, when homeowners built a guardhouse at the Serra Road entrance under a permit from Los Angeles County.

The Coastal Commission ruled that a state development permit was also required but denied the homeowners’ application, concluding the guardhouse would discourage public use of state parks. After a second denial, and objections from state parks to the guardhouse project, homeowners sued both agencies in 1998.

In a 2001 settlement, state parks agreed to drop its objections in exchange for continued public access to parkland for several hundred feet inside the Serra Road guardhouse, according to the agreement.

Two years later, the Coastal Commission approved the guardhouse as well, as long as public access along Serra Road was guaranteed, documents show.

At that point, after the gatehouse had sat unused for 13 years, guards began to screen vehicles. But hikers were allowed to enter.

Also in 2003, homeowners applied to the Coastal Commission for a permit to add gates at the guardhouse. Long-standing legal disputes between the commission and the city of Malibu prompted the homeowners to also apply to the city. The commission staff opposed the gates three months ago, but the homeowners got a permit from Malibu in June.

Now, officials at the Coastal Commission and state parks say they are writing letters to Malibu about the lack of public access at Serra Road. Veesart said that homeowners did an “end run” around the commission, and that the city acted contrary to state law and its local coastal plan in granting the permit.

Homeowners’ attorney Stacey said the Coastal Commission referred him to the city, and now is having second thoughts because commission staffers dispute the city’s decision.

Malibu building official Victor Peterson, who approved the new gates, said the city’s decision was logical.

“They had a gatehouse and no gates,” he said. “Based on all the information we had at the time, it was just a follow-up on what was already permitted by the Coastal Commission.”

Nevertheless, all parties agree the key issue is access to the state park.

Stacey said homeowners are willing to allow hikers to proceed about 300 feet north of the gatehouse to enter parkland, if the state improves a trailhead where there is now a locked and rusting gate but no fence or warning signs about campfires, camping and rattlesnakes.

The homeowners are willing to move the welcome sign away from the homeless encampment to nearby Serra Road and add a second sign along the road, he said. Homeowners insist they placed the sign in its present location at the request of a commission planner.

The Coastal Commission’s Veesart said that while the public has been denied access to the lagoon parkland, someone has built unapproved equestrian trails there, including moving boulders from Malibu Creek for a horse crossing, a violation of law.

“Someone is using state parkland for private recreation,” he said. Two horseback riders were seen entering the park from the Serra Canyon community on a recent afternoon.

Homeowners association President Geoffrey Gee said residents do sometimes ride on the parkland. He said the public is welcome to ride, if equestrians can find a way to safely bring in their horses without using private portions of Serra Road.

“The homeowners’ board really wants to do the best we can to get this thing resolved,” said association secretary Father Warren, who is director of hilltop Serra Retreat, a Franciscan-run center in the canyon.

Times staff writer Kenneth R. Weiss contributed to this report.