Malibu Civic Center : Land Plan Stumbles Over Height Limits

A recommendation that would limit building heights in the Malibu civic center has provided the newest obstacle to agreement on a Malibu land-use plan.

Los Angeles County planners say that the latest proposal by the state Coastal Commission staff has resolved many of their previous concerns. But they object to new recommendations that would bar structures more than three stories high in the civic center.

The county and the Coastal Commission have been struggling for three years to agree on a land-use plan for Malibu’s coastal zone, which includes the 27-mile shoreline and extends five miles inland to the heart of the Santa Monica Mountains.

The county has generally been regarded as more pro-development than the commission.

Return of Power

Adoption of a plan would return to the county authority over construction in Malibu. Voters took that power away from local government in 1972 by approving Proposition 20, which created the Coastal Commission.

Since that referendum, the commission has had final authority over building permits. But, without an overall plan for the area, the commission has been reluctant to approve large projects in Malibu, which is prone to fire, floods and falling rock.

The county’s first version of the plan, submitted in 1982, drew heavy criticism from the commission, with one commissioner labeling it “an embarrassment.” In December, the Coastal Commission staff suggested a sharp reduction in the amount of development to be permitted, decreasing the number of new housing units from 12,095 to about 7,500.

In the latest round of negotiations, the commission staff unveiled a new proposal this month that analyst Steve Scholl called “a compromise. . . . I feel like we’ve tried to address everybody’s concerns.”

Action Expected in June

The commissioners are scheduled to act on the staff’s proposal at a June 13 meeting in Los Angeles. The county could accept the plan, or reject it and submit its own version to the commission.

The major obstacle to agreement appears to be the height limit in the area near Pepperdine University. As recently as January, the commission staff said construction up to five stories would be permitted over 10% of the civic center, where the county offices are situated.

“We could have done nicely with that,” said county subdivision administrator Geoffrey Taylor, one of the county’s negotiators.

In its latest version, the commission staff calls for a two-story limit in the civic center until a specific center plan is adopted. Then, some three-story buildings might be permitted.

The modification would cut the total development possible in the civic center from about 5 million square feet to 800,000 square feet before a specific plan, and to 1.2 million square feet after a plan.

Scholl said the change was prompted by public comments at a 12-hour hearing in January on his earlier draft.

‘Encourages Specific Plan’

“The change in the civic center helps everybody who was afraid that it would be a Century City there,” Scholl said. “And it encourages a specific plan, which has design benefits and makes sure that land uses are coordinated better.”

But Taylor disagreed. He said there is not enough incentive for planning the civic center: “We’d be going from really bad to not as bad, but nowhere approaching good.”

He said some five-story structures were needed to “allow accents, like the tower at Pepperdine. With this (new limit), you can’t even build a church steeple.

“We weren’t trying to build it all high-rise there. But we weren’t trying to get it all low-rise, either. It would all look alike. It would be like Venice.”

Taylor said most of the county’s earlier concerns over the commission staff’s plan were resolved by the new draft.