Assessments on Residents Trigger Opposition to Malibu Sewer System

Malibu resident Carl Randall said he recently received notice that he may be forced to sell his beachside home of 21 years and abandon the coastal community.

The notice arrived in the form of a $12,874 assessment for a proposed sewer system in Malibu that Randall and many other residents do not want and say they cannot afford. For Randall and other sewer opponents, the bills represent the frustrating reality that their lengthy battle against a regional sewer system may soon be over.

“I’ll have to seriously consider moving out,” said Randall, 68, a retired construction worker. “I’m not poor because I own a very valuable piece of property, but I’m not sure I can make mortgage payments and also pay for a sewer system and a hookup and still afford to live here. The bills just keep going up.”

The estimated cost of the huge sewer system has jumped to nearly $87 million, about $22 million more than the price predicted by the county consultant for the project two months ago.

Los Angeles County planners blame the rising cost on increased expenses for land acquisition, but the price tag scares homeowners like Randall, who believe that the estimate is still too low and could send their bills skyrocketing. County officials concede that further assessments could be forthcoming and that the bills do not include the price of maintenance or individual hookups to the system, which could run as high as $15,000 per landowner.

As expected, the assessments have triggered a wave of resentment among many of the 2,600 Malibu property owners who received their notices.

The Malibu Township Council, a civic group representing about 1,000 families, is opposed to the sewer system because its members, including Randall, believe the system is too costly and could damage the already unstable hillsides in the canyons above Malibu.

They say the traffic-choked Pacific Coast Highway will just get worse when sewer construction starts and opens the coast to development that will forever change the character of Malibu.

However, most difficult for sewer opponents is that they feel powerless to stop construction after turning back three previous attempts to build a central system in Malibu.

The county can build the system without voter approval because it declared the community’s septic systems a health hazard in 1985.

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on the proposed sewer system at a public hearing Oct. 22. If the board and the California Coastal Commission approve it, construction is scheduled to begin in two years. The first phase of the system, which would extend from Topanga Canyon to the west end of Malibu Road, would be completed by the end of 1991, according to county planners.

“This thing is robbing our bank account,” said Anna Hutchinson, a resident of Malibu for 26 years. “Our right to vote has been taken away and we’re being forced to pay for something that we don’t need. It’s like having a gun put to your head and having your money taken.”

Hutchinson and her husband were assessed for three parcels, including two vacant lots, one on each side of their Latigo Shores Road home. Because her home is in a slide area, Hutchinson said, the two lots cannot be developed, information not reflected in her $38,622 assessment bill.

“The whole thing is mind-boggling,” she said. “We’re going to have to pay for pumps, for maintenance, and this is just the initial assessment. Who knows how much it’s going to be?”

Mike Nagao, a civil engineer with the county Public Works Department, said the county would issue bonds, maturing in 15 to 20 years, to pay for the sewer system. He said property owners could pay off the assessment in one lump sum or over the length of the bond issue.

Even with bills spread out over a number of years, some residents maintain, they would have difficulty making payments, which could climb as high as $30,000 for a typical homeowner and would run in the millions for large commercial property owners.

“No matter what happens, if they approve it, a lot of people will be forced to leave,” said 88-year-old William Morris. “I don’t know if I would be able to stay, but I can assure you that I have had no pleasure in contemplating my own assessment or in the fact that Malibu will never be the same.”

The range of assessments varied, based on the development potential of individual parcels under the Malibu land use plan.

The Los Angeles Athletic Club received a $4.7-million bill for a 48-acre parcel at Topanga Canyon Road and the Pacific Coast Highway where it plans to build a recreational facility.

Pepperdine University was hit with several individual assessments totaling more than $1 million, and property owners around the Malibu Civic Center were billed for seven-figure sums for their undeveloped parcels. Two lots in the area between the Pacific Coast Highway and Malibu Road were assessed at more than $3 million each.

James Kiewit, a property owner in the Big Rock area of Malibu, which has been hit by a series of landslides over the years, was assessed for a lot next to his Seaboard Road home although he said it cannot be developed because of the unstable hillside.

Despite his $25,750 bill, Kiewit said he favors a sewer system because he lives in a landslide area and he believes water leaks from surrounding septic tanks have contributed to the slide problem.

“I think a sewer system would be beneficial to our area, but there are so many cost unknowns, it’s hard to say,” Kiewit said. “It’s going to be a real imposition on my finances, but this area needs some kind of system. I’m just not sure the one the county has proposed is it.”

Randall, who serves as an administrator for the Malibu Township Council, believes the whole sewer issue is a smoke screen for affluent property owners who want to develop Malibu but are constrained by the absence of a sewage system.

Peter Ireland, Supervisor Deane Dana’s field deputy in Malibu, said that something must be done to address the sewage and septic problems that the county maintains have plagued the community for years.

“We’re trying to be as sympathetic as we can to their concerns but if nothing is done, then there will be increasingly severe problems,” he said.

“Historically, there are recurrent problems with overflowing septic tanks and geologic instability and something needs to be done,” he said. “But there are people who have an agenda to oppose anything and will use whatever arguments they can come up with. The land use plan can only accommodate limited development.

“No public official wants to come down on the unpopular side of an issue, but I think the board will very carefully consider those hardship cases.”

Opponents of the proposed sewer system say, like Randall, that they will do everything they can to halt construction of a sewer system in Malibu, including suing the county for fraud over its claim that the community’s septic systems are a health hazard.

“I’ve been looking at this ocean for 53 years now and I don’t want to give it up,” Randall said. “I didn’t buy here as an investment, I bought here to live because I love this area and I’ll do anything to see that it isn’t ruined.”