Fast Malibu Growth Causes Concern : Development: Coastal Commissioner Madelyn Glickfeld asks colleagues to watch approval of new projects more closely until cityhood is achieved.

Amid an unprecedented rush to build new homes in Malibu, a member of the California Coastal Commission last week made a plea for the state panel to give closer scrutiny to new projects there before the seaside community becomes a city.

Commissioner Madelyn Glickfeld said that, left unchecked, the rapid pace of development in Malibu threatens to rob the community’s future city government of the chance to decide growth issues.

“There is soon going to be a new city that will have its own agenda as to how it wants to regulate growth, and we need to come up with a means now to show consideration for its wishes,” Glickfeld said.

Although Malibu voters overwhelmingly approved cityhood in June, Los Angeles county supervisors have delayed the actual incorporation until next March in a bid to start work on a controversial sewer system before a new city council is able to block it.

The five-member council, elected but unable to take office, is made up entirely of slow-growth advocates. It is expected to take a stricter view of growth issues than the more development-oriented county government.

Both county officials and slow-growth activists acknowledge that the county has issued nearly as many new residential building permits in Malibu in the past nine months as it did in the previous three years. Except in certain instances, the Coastal Commission, which has jurisdiction within the state’s five-mile coastal zone, must also approve new permits in Malibu before construction begins.

In her remarks Thursday during a meeting of the 12-member state panel in this Central Coast city, Glickfeld warned that, if the panel continues at its usual pace to approve new residential construction in Malibu, it may prejudice the future council’s ability to establish its own land-use plan.

“I’m going to start voting against some of these projects on the basis that (the future council’s ability to set up its land-use plan will be jeopardized),” she said in an interview, “and I hope to persuade about seven other commissioners to join me.”

However, several commissioners said they do not intend to change the way they consider Malibu projects simply because its government-in-waiting may take a more restrictive view of growth in the future.

“I think that’s the wrong approach,” Commissioner David Malcolm said. “Until there is actually a new city, and a new land-use plan is in place, I don’t think it’s our role to change the way we approach applications that come before us.”

Malcolm, a Chula Vista city councilman, said that Malibu cityhood supporters have themselves to blame for the rush to take out new building permits there.

“The council-elect has created this rush for permits,” he said. “They’re the ones who’ve scared people who want to build because of the threats and innuendoes they’ve made in the press” about slowing future development.

The Land-Use Plan certified by the commission in 1986 set a limit of 2,110 residential units that may be built in the Malibu area until another traffic lane is added to Pacific Coast Highway, between Malibu and the Santa Monica (10) Freeway.

Slow-growth advocates insist that, since then, there have been enough applications to build new homes and subdivide new lots in Malibu that, if all of them were to result in new construction, the cap may have already been exceeded.

County officials say that only about 400 building permits have been issued since the cap went into effect, but acknowledge that they do not have an accurate accounting of all the permits in process. The Coastal Commission, which is severely understaffed, also does not keep track of applications that are in process.

However, at Glickfeld’s urging, Charles Damm, a staff analyst for the commission, said that the staff plans to try to make an accurate accounting, “so that we can get a fix for where we are in relation to the cap.”

In an interview, Missy Zeitsoff, a member of the unofficial city council, called the new commitment “excellent news.”

“A lot of us are going to be delighted to see that the Coastal Commission may begin to take a look at the cap, because we feel that that really should enter into their considerations when these projects come before them,” Zeitsoff said.

In a related matter, the state panel unanimously approved a 6,400-square-foot expansion of Pepperdine University’s Firestone Fieldhouse, which will add several classrooms, women’s locker room space, and a small but unspecified number of luxury spectator seats for sporting events.

Although relatively minor, the expansion had been opposed by members of the influential Malibu Township Council and the Malibu Road Homeowners Assn. However, no one made the trip to Monterey to oppose the matter on Thursday.

The expansion is part of Pepperdine’s long-range development plan, which the Coastal Commission approved last year, allowing the university eventually to nearly double the size of its campus.

Both the Township Council and the homeowners group have filed suit against the commission to block the university’s long-range goals, contending that the state panel failed to adequately consider the environmental impact.