Malibu Development Compromise Approved by Coastal Commission

A narrow vote Thursday by the California Coastal Commission brought the state and Los Angeles County into agreement on a land-use plan for Malibu, ending 3 1/2 years of negotiation and reconciling two strikingly different views of the future of the seaside community that contains some of the most popular beaches and mountain parks in the Los Angeles Basin.

The compromise, which coastal commissioners accepted by a 7-5 vote, cuts by nearly half the number of new dwellings the county originally wanted to allow in Malibu. The final version of the plan also leaves many residents and environmentalists uneasy, however, about the effects of new hotels, apartments and offices on ocean views, on a fragile ecology and on the already-congested main street, Pacific Coast Highway.

During the difficult process of drawing up a blueprint for development, the state has generally emphasized protection of Malibu’s sensitive environment, which is plagued by brush fires, floods and falling rock. The county has focused on the rights of property owners to build on their land.

The state and county were required to agree on a plan before it could take effect. They still must create specific ordinances to back up the guidelines, which county and state planners predicted will take a year or two.

Until then, the Coastal Commission will retain final authority over construction in Malibu. The coastal panel was reluctant to allow large projects before the land-use guidelines were completed.

The plan allows 6,582 additional houses, condominiums and apartments in the Malibu coastal zone, which stretches along 27 miles of shoreline west of Topanga and extends five miles inland to the heart of the Santa Monica Mountains--as opposed to the 12,095 proposed by the county and rejected by the state in 1983. About 20,000 people live in 8,000 dwellings in the unincorporated Malibu area.

Construction of new hotels, offices and stores would be concentrated in two major centers suggested by the county: the Malibu Civic Center area east of Pepperdine University and the Point Dume-Paradise Cove area. Trancas Canyon, in western Malibu, was originally included by the county as a third urban center, but it has been deleted from the approved land-use plan.

The plan also includes an interim cap of 2,110 units of residential construction until Pacific Coast Highway is improved to handle additional traffic.

The county Board of Supervisors unanimously accepted the plan in October. Supervisor Deane Dana, whose 4th District includes Malibu, hinted then that a rejection from the state could lead to a court battle.

County planning officials pointed Thursday to the hundreds of concessions they have made and said they could bend no further.

“The plan which has emerged from this process attains a reasonable balance among the obviously conflicting goals of present residents, future residents and the broader regional community,” County Planning Director Norman Murdoch said.

Coastal Commissioner Thomas J. McMurray Jr. agreed. The plan “may not be as restrictive as some would like, but I certainly don’t think it opens up that whole area to massive development,” he said.

The coastal panel’s action overruled a recommendation by its staff to reject the plan, citing continuing differences over how to limit construction in wooded, stream-filled canyons and on rugged hillside lots.

A staff report issued last month criticized the plan’s elimination of a program that would have required builders who want to subdivide their property to buy the development rights to small mountain lots, originally created for cabins or tents. The purchases, for about $15,000 each, would essentially have prevented future building on the cabin lots and directed construction toward the flatlands along the coast highway.

Murdoch said a simple limit on development would be much less confusing.

Without the program, however, the county would have “no means of enforcing the overall development cap,” the staff report says, so the limit would be “vulnerable to abandonment.”

The report also opposed the deletion of a state-recommended requirement for specific plans for watershed areas where creeks snake along canyon bottoms. County officials say there are enough general restrictions on building to protect the canyons, so construction should not be further delayed.

Each canyon is different and should be addressed individually, the state staff said. Those concerns were echoed by a parade of Malibu homeowners and residents from Pacific Palisades to Highland Park who like to surf, swim and hike in Malibu, as well as by the five coastal commissioners who voted to reject the plan and continue negotiating with the county.

“This is not another urban extension but a special resource,” said Madelyn Glickfeld, sitting on the panel as an alternate for Commissioner Duane Garrett. She voted against the plan.

Leon Cooper, president of the Malibu Township Council, a civic organization, agreed.

The plan as adopted, Cooper said, “will turn Malibu into a highly congested, urbanized area.”