Encinal Canyon Project Approved : Development: The Coastal Commission rejects its staff’s recommendation and gives the nod to a plan for 55 luxury homes.

Overruling its own staff, the California Coastal Commission last week voted 6 to 4 to approve a developer’s controversial proposal to build 55 luxury homes, a road and a sewer system in rugged Encinal Canyon, just outside Malibu.

The commission’s vote Thursday in Huntington Beach capped three years of ferocious battling between Malibu-area residents opposed to the project and the developers, VMS Realty Partners of Chicago and its subsidiary, the Anden Group. About a score of project opponents who had chartered a bus from Malibu to attend the hearing sat stunned when the commission rejected the staff’s recommendation that the project be scaled back.

The commission’s staff had recommended that the state panel approve the project only if it were reduced to 34 homes, none of which could be built on the east slope of the canyon. Blocking construction on that slope, the staff said, would protect the wild views of the canyon from Pacific Coast Highway, reduce the amount of grading required for the subdivision and eliminate the need for a road through rugged terrain to the east slope.

It is rare for the commission to disregard its staff’s recommendations, but Chairman Steve MacElvaine, explaining his vote in favor of the larger project, noted that the developers had already considerably scaled back their plans. VMS-Anden had originally wanted to erect 69 homes and build an 18-hole golf course, grading about 8 million cubic yards of earth in the process. About 1.2 million cubic yards of grading is called for in the plan that was approved.

“Is there a visual impact? Sure!” he said. “But the design is a considerable improvement.”

Madelyn Glickfield, a commissioner and Malibu resident, disagreed. She and other critics of the project worried that the commission’s approval would set a precedent for other developers to begin massive grading of what in the past has been considered undevelopable land. “This would be like a neon sign on top of the Santa Monica Mountains saying, ‘Come and dig us out,’ ” she protested as it became apparent that the commission was going to reject the staff’s recommendation.

Commissioner Gary Giacomini agreed. “A very intricate staff proposal was blown away,” he said in an interview after the vote. “This is a tragedy. It is going to set up a standard of rapaciousness along the coast.”

Critics of the project in Malibu contended that the development would undermine nearby property values, create fire hazards and destroy an important wildlife habitat. They regarded the scaled-back development recommended by the commission staff as unpalatable, but probably a necessary compromise.

Michael Rosenfeld, a spokesman for VMS-Anden, leaped up and hugged his wife and friends after the vote. Meanwhile, some of the opponents stomped past him in tears.

“Nobody gives a damn about these mountains anymore,” shouted Patt Healy, a longtime Malibu activist and environmentalist. She stood crying outside Huntington Beach City Hall, where the meeting was held, while Malibu Councilwoman Missy Zeitsoff and others tried to console her.

“A total abomination, an absolute rape,” Lucille Keller, another Malibu activist, scolded the rejoicing developers.

But Rosenfeld, in an interview before he headed off to a nearby restaurant to celebrate, said his project was “environmentally sound.” He said 82% of the developers’ 255 acres will remain open space, and that nearly half of it will be given to public parks. He also noted that developers have made many other concessions to commission staff, including reducing the “oak tree impact” from the 39 trees originally planned to be cut down to seven.

Even Paul Russell, one of the leaders of the fight against the project and spokesman for the Malibu West Community Council, tried to put a positive spin on Thursday’s vote. “I’m disappointed,” he said. “But I think the community should appreciate that this approval is for a much smaller and less intrusive project than was originally approved by the county.”

In 1989, realizing that the county was likely to be more receptive to its plans than the soon-to-be-incorporated city of Malibu, the developers persuaded a county commission to draw the city boundaries to exclude the property. Los Angeles County supervisors approved the subdivision, which then called for 69 homes, after VMS-Anden dropped plans for the golf course.

That left the Coastal Commission as the project’s last hurdle, one that took nearly a year to clear. The commission shares jurisdiction with local governments over development in the state’s coastal zone.

The state panel was first scheduled to hear the case last November, and twice after that, but each time the developers asked to postpone the matter--two times because the commission staff had issued a report recommending denial.

The project is to be called Rancho Malibu Estates. Rosenfeld said he expects construction to begin in about a year.