Malibu Cityhood Bid Gets Boost as Panel OKs Issue for Ballot

In a major boost for Malibu incorporation proponents, the Local Agency Formation Commission on Wednesday approved a proposal to turn the famed coastal community into Los Angeles County’s newest city.

The action by the panel, authorizing a vote by Malibu residents on cityhood, followed an often rancorous 3 1/2-hour hearing packed by more than 500 people, including several celebrities and the most-powerful landowners in the beachside community of 20,000.

Cityhood advocates burst into applause after the commission’s vote. Earlier, they booed several incorporation foes, including a developer who said that the majority of Malibu residents want the proposed city “to become the land that time forgot.”

Deal With Own Problems

“Frankly I’m astounded and delighted,” said Leon Cooper, president of the Malibu Township Council, a community group that launched the cityhood effort last October. “The bottom line is . . . we get a chance to vote for incorporation. Now, if we win and we have problems, we can deal with them ourselves.”

LAFCO’s 6-1 vote greatly increases the chances of placing the issue on the November ballot, a stated goal of incorporation backers, who said that they want to capitalize on what Cooper called “rising anti-county sentiment” generated by Los Angeles County’s proposal last fall to build an $86-million sewer system in Malibu.

As part of an intense lobbying effort during the last three weeks, incorporation advocates sent more than 1,500 letters to LAFCO commissioners asking them to approve the petition.

Unless LAFCO commissioners receive a request by cityhood opponents to reconsider their vote, the proposal next will go to county supervisors for a public hearing.

Supervisors can reject the cityhood petition only if 50% of Malibu’s 8,300 voters protest the LAFCO vote in writing, which is unlikely because nearly 3,300 of them signed the petitions to place the issue before the agency. Supervisors then are required to authorize a vote by Malibu residents at the next regular election.

Community residents have considered incorporation of Malibu for more than 30 years and twice voters have rejected it. Incorporation foes prevailed by only 108 votes during a 1976 election, however, and even the most ardent opponents of cityhood believe that the measure probably would pass by a substantial margin today.

The hearing on the haven of many film and television stars--held in county offices in downtown Los Angeles--brought out the usual sampling of celebrities.

Actress Ali MacGraw and television star Michael Landon both testified in support of cityhood for Malibu.

“I care passionately about Malibu and I beg you to let us decide the issue for ourselves,” said MacGraw, who serves as honorary mayor of Malibu. “If you let us vote for cityhood, you will enable Malibu to grow, as indeed it must, in a sane way.”

Opponents include many major property owners in Malibu, such as Pepperdine University. They fear that future plans to develop the beachfront community would be throttled by slow-growth advocates, who have maintained that the county is trying to turn Malibu into “another Miami Beach.”

Pepperdine and 16 other property owners asked commissioners to be excluded from the proposed city boundary, which stretches from Topanga Canyon to Leo Carrillo State Beach and roughly one mile inland. But the panel voted to exclude only a 100-acre parcel owned by the Los Angeles Athletic Club, saying that the boundary line that included the property was “arbitrary.”

Andrew Benton, vice president for administration at Pepperdine, complained that the proposed city boundary dissects the university’s property and that the school would have to meet both city and county planning guidelines if incorporation is approved.

Dividing the campus would “create confusion and conflict,” he said, arguing that the campus could be served best by county planners.

Most of the opponents attacked the LAFCO staff report that recommended approval for cityhood, despite estimates that the city would face a $2.1-million budget deficit in its first year. A state agency organized at the county level, LAFCO presides over incorporation issues and can kill a cityhood proposal if it is not economically feasible.

In the report on Malibu, Ruth Benell, LAFCO’s executive director, said the city could handle the shortfall by spreading the cost of large public works projects over several years. In addition, a city of Malibu would be eligible for more than $1 million in federal and state funds for road maintenance and other construction work, Benell said.

David DeRoos, a member of the Arthur Young accounting firm who represented a group of property owners, said the deficit would be more than $1 million higher than LAFCO’s estimate.

But Commissioner Henri Pellissier countered that the LAFCO estimates have been “highly reliable” for other communities that later incorporated, such as West Hollywood.

Roy Crummer, the major developer of the Malibu Civic Center, said the timing was not right for Malibu because major issues such as sewers are still being studied by a local citizens panel. He used the hearing to blast the strident no-growth forces in Malibu.

“You probably think all the clamor about development in Malibu is due to all the hotels, shopping centers and housing projects that are currently built or under construction,” Crummer told commissioners. “Well, think again. None of that exists. But you’d never suspect that from all the rhetorical overkill from various homeowner groups.”

Los Angeles County Supervisor Peter Schabarum, who cast the panel’s lone dissenting vote, said he was opposed to the proposed city boundaries because they would affect growth in the unincorporated areas adjoining Malibu.

But LAFCO panel members agreed with state Coastal Commissioner Madelyn Glickfeld, who said that the time was right to let voters determine whether to transform the beach community--where the average home sold for $500,000 in 1987 and waterfront houses cost well over $1 million--into a city.

MALIBU FACTS

Population: The area has 20,000 residents; 93% are white. Average age is 38.

Registered voters: 8,347.

Size: 21 square miles. City would stretch from Topanga Canyon to Leo Carrillo State Beach along Pacific Coast Highway and approximately 1 mile inland.

Average housing price: $500,000 in 1987. Average price for beachfront house was $1.14 million in 1986.

Other characteristics: Malibu is plagued by fires, floods and landslides. It is also one of Southern California’s favorite and most famous surfing haunts. Surfrider State Beach next to the Malibu pier is where the modern surfboard reportedly was developed.

Favorite bumper sticker: “Malibu--where the slide meets the tide.”