County to Ask OK to Start on Malibu Sewer : Sanitation: Opponents call the plan to pressure Coastal Commission a ‘desperate’ ploy to prevent a new government from blocking the project.

In a bid to speed construction of a controversial sewer system in Malibu, Los Angeles County officials have indicated that they will press the California Coastal Commission this week to allow the work to begin.

A county public works official said last week that the county will ask that construction be allowed to proceed without waiting for the state panel to consider other approvals that ordinarily could be expected to take at least several more months.

“We think it’s important for the commission to consider what we have submitted to them and allow us to move ahead with the project,” said Harry Stone, the county’s deputy director of public works.

The Coastal Commission is to consider the matter Tuesday when it meets in Long Beach.

Opponents of the sewer plan immediately labeled the county’s latest move as a last-ditch effort to get construction under way before a new Malibu government has the chance to block it.

“It shows how desperate the county is, that they’re trying to circumvent the normal hearing process,” said Bob Briskin, whose home in the Malibu Country Estates subdivision is near where the county wants to build a sewage plant.

The Malibu Country Estates Homeowners Assn. last week filed a lawsuit against the county in an attempt to block the plant from being built there, contending that the environmental impact of the plant has not been adequately studied.

Residents of the subdivision, next to Pepperdine University, have expressed concern that if the sewer plant is built under their noses, it could damage the property values of their million-dollar homes.

All five members of Malibu’s future City Council, chosen last month at the same time voters overwhelmingly approved cityhood, are on record as being opposed to the sewer plan. They say it is too large and too costly and would open the door to more development than the area can realistically absorb.

Despite the victory for cityhood forces, however, the county has gone to court to delay the actual incorporation. A three-judge panel in Los Angeles has set a July 18 hearing to decide whether incorporation is allowed to go forward or whether the county can succeed in delaying it until next March.

Last November, the Coastal Commission approved a sewer plan that calls for a system 25% to 40% smaller than what the county had insisted upon.

However, the actual construction must also be approved by the coastal panel before the work can begin. County officials had predicted as recently as three months ago that it might be April, 1991, before approvals are obtained and next June before the first pipe is laid.

The county Board of Supervisors in April obeyed a judge’s order to quit stalling and set a date for the incorporation election. In authorizing the election, however, the supervisors imposed a delay of incorporation that, while being challenged in the courts, has left Malibu’s newly elected officials without a city to govern.

In approving a bid by Malibu residents to vote on cityhood last year, the Local Agency Formation Commission stipulated that the county be allowed to retain control over the sewer system for up to 10 years after incorporation. But some LAFCO members expressed doubts about the legality of the provision, and several of the future council members have made it clear that they favor challenging it once the city is incorporated.

At issue before the Coastal Commission is whether the county should be allowed to proceed with construction based on the plans it has submitted for the sewer system.

By law, the proposed sewer system must comply with both a 1986 land-use plan for the Malibu coastal zone and a so-called implementation plan for setting up zoning ordinances and other legal mechanisms for carrying out the land-use plan.

* HOTEL VENTURE

The Adamson Cos. and owners of the Hotel Bel-Air will develop a hotel overlooking the Pacific in Malibu. J5.