Malibu Lake Building Restrictions Extended

Stumped about how to provide fire protection for an isolated community in the Santa Monica Mountains, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Thursday extended for another year an ordinance that has virtually frozen development in the area.

The existing urgency ordinance, which severely restricts growth in the 180-house Malibu Lake community by requiring such costly pre-construction work as extensive road widening, was set to expire at the end of February.

When Supervisor Ed Edelman first recommended the restrictions a year ago, he said he wanted to give county planning, public works and fire officials time to come up with a plan for improving firetruck access to the area.

Eclectic Malibu Lake, a former resort located in a bone-dry canyon near Agoura Hills, is essentially one large cul-de-sac connected to the outside world by one narrow road.

At Thursday’s meeting, Edelman said another year is needed because the fire dangers in the area are so difficult to resolve.

“We certainly don’t want to see a repetition of what happened in Oakland,” Edelman said, referring to the devastating October fire, which killed 25 people and burned more than 3,000 homes.

“It’s important that when these situations come to the county that we not just put our blinders on and say we can’t do anything about it,” he added.

A report prepared by county officials last year indicated that bringing the area up to even the most basic fire safety standards would involve an estimated expenditure of $11 million, mostly for widening the road and building a second access road.

Controversy about the building restrictions has divided the community, chiefly between residents and a group of owners of 102 vacant lots who want to develop their properties.

Mary Altmann, president of the Malibu Lakeside Homeowners Assn., urged the supervisors to extend the ordinance a second year, saying one year was not enough time “to solve 75 years of planning error and neglect. . . . The fire threat is real, and it’s very scary for the people who live here.”

But Phyllis Daugherty, who represents owners of the vacant land, argued that lifting the ordinance now would force homeowners to negotiate with her group over ways to reduce the threat of fire.

Daugherty said the landowners are willing to consolidate their lots, thus reducing the number of houses that could be built, and share in the cost of road improvements.

“We are already willing to negotiate. We do not want to overcrowd the area,” Daugherty said. “But now that they have everything they want, they are not willing to negotiate.”

Santa Monica Mountains