County to Buy Apartments at Slide Site : Eviction Notices Stun Residents of 6 Canyon Units

County officials agreed Tuesday to buy six luxury apartments in Malibu so they can tear them down.

The Board of Supervisors, in another landslide-related pay-out, approved a $750,000 price tag for the apartment complex in rustic Las Flores Canyon, about a third of a mile from Pacific Coast Highway. The vote follows by three weeks the supervisors’ $35-million landslide settlement with 240 homeowners on nearby Big Rock Mesa.

The razing of the three A-frame apartment structures would allow Las Flores Creek to widen, reducing the chance of flooding throughout the canyon during storms, county officials said.

The creek is narrowest, about three feet wide, at a bend where the apartments are located. It has lost about 35 feet in width there and 95% of its volume since March, 1985, as a Rambla Pacifico hillside has slid into it, officials said.

Eviction Notice

The purchase of the apartments leaves temporarily unresolved, however, the future of residents of five of them. The sixth apartment is vacant.

Residents say they were stunned by a county eviction notice served last Tuesday that declared their homes unsafe and gave them 10 days to move out. They have begun negotiations for more time and relocation benefits.

Supervisors on Tuesday approved payments of up to $10,000 per dwelling, and county negotiators said they intended to offer each household a $4,000 lump-sum payment plus moving costs and reimbursement for any temporary shelter and storage that may be necessary.

But residents said Wednesday morning that no agreement had been reached, and they were planning to plead their case for more time to the county Building Appeals Board on Friday, the day on which the county first said it intended to raze their homes.

“It may be that the appeals board will grant them additional time on Friday, subject to (the arrival of) a big storm,” said Richard Hoff, assistant deputy Public Works director in charge of property management. “In that case, we would require them to move immediately.”

Even if the dispute is eventually resolved satisfactorily, several residents said they were angry over the county’s sudden insistence that they move immediately.

“We knew we were going to have to move eventually,” said Andrew McCartney, an attorney’s assistant who has lived with his actress wife, Franny, in one of the condemned apartments for 10 years. “But giving us 10 days to move is totally outrageous.”

Neighbor Leni Corwin, a free-lance writer, said: “We know there’s the risk of a possible slide and a possible flood . . . but to be ordered out in 10 days is vicious, like Simon Legree. . . . “

County officials said they made the decision to buy the apartments and evict the residents quickly because of a flood scare two weeks ago.

“We had a situation before that last storm,” Hoff said, “where the ground was 50% saturated and it was still raining.

“We got very concerned. Once the ground gets 100% saturated and you get a certain size storm, (flood waters) can build up within a minute. That’s when we sent out the notices to vacate. We did weigh it very carefully.”

The decision came after five years of monitoring the situation, Hoff said.

Each winter since the massive 1983 Rambla Pacifico landslide--which destroyed eight homes, an electrical substation and undercut a busy street--the county has notified about three dozen Las Flores Canyon residents that landslide encroachment into the creek has increased the danger of flooding, he said.

Though Hoff could not estimate how much the slide has moved into the creek this winter, he said: “A year ago, there was more of a safety factor than there is today.”

Under current conditions, during a major storm, the apartments would block rushing waters at a tight turn in the creek, Hoff said. Debris could then dam the channel, flooding homes upstream, he said. In addition, a major flood could wash away the apartments, threatening the lives of residents and possibly damaging downstream property.