Panel to Vote on Luxury Homes : Encinal Canyon: The Coastal Commission will decide whether to permit the grading of 1.2 million cubic yards of earth to build the 55 homes.
After months of delay, the California Coastal Commission is scheduled to decide this week whether to approve a developer’s proposal to grade 1.2 million cubic yards of earth and build 55 luxury homes in Encinal Canyon near Malibu.
The developer, VMS Realty Partners of Chicago, and its subsidiary, the Anden Group, have scaled back their original proposal, which included a championship golf course and more than 8 million cubic yards of grading.
However, VMS-Anden still faces opposition from environmentalists and residents, who say the project is too large and would be out of place on the brush-covered hills just outside Malibu’s western boundary.
The Coastal Commission staff, meanwhile, has recommended that the project be reduced further, to include no more than 34 homes and less than 1 million cubic yards of grading.
The state panel, which takes up the matter Thursday, is not bound by the staff recommendation, but often follows the staff’s lead in deciding whether to approve projects. The commission meets this week at Huntington Beach City Hall.
Opponents of the project contend that the developer’s latest proposal is still unacceptable, but they were more receptive to the commission staff’s recommendation.
“I won’t say that we aren’t opposed to (the staff’s plan), but it is by far the most palatable proposal we’ve seen in the (three years) since this whole thing began,” said Paul Russell, spokesman for the Malibu West Community Council.
A spokesman for the developer, meanwhile, expressed hope that the state panel will approve VMS-Anden’s latest plan without further restricting the 256-acre project.
“When you’re leaving 82% of the entire property undisturbed, it’s hard to imagine that being perceived as excessive use,” VMS-Anden spokesman Michael Rosenfeld said.
Getting past the Coastal Commission, which shares jurisdiction with local governments over development in the state’s coastal zone, has been the developer’s biggest challenge. More than a year ago, Los Angeles County supervisors approved a 69-home development in the canyon, after VMS-Anden dropped plans for an 18-hole golf course.
In 1989, the developers, judging that the county would be more receptive to its plans than the then-future city of Malibu, managed to persuade a county commission to draw the city boundaries to exclude the rugged hillside property. This, however, has fueled local resentment toward the project.
The developer’s original plan, attacked by residents as an environmental disaster, called for the golf course and the moving of 8 million cubic yards of earth. The county Regional Planning Commission rejected that proposal in May, 1989.
Opponents have contended that if a subdivision were built, the new homeowners in an area frequently beset by brush fires could be in danger because only one access road is proposed for the development.
Some nearby property owners have also expressed concern that fumes from a waste-water treatment plant the developer wants to build at the site might decrease the value of neighboring homes.
