Malibu : Builder’s Plans Overturned

A Los Angeles judge has overturned the approval by Los Angeles County officials of a developer’s plans to build 17 luxury homes above Malibu’s Solstice Canyon.

Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien ruled that the County Board of Supervisors erred in not requiring an environmental impact report when the officials approved the project two days before Malibu became a city last year.

O’Brien called the county’s argument that an environmental report was not necessary “weak at best,” noting that the property--which Primrose Park Inc., a New York-based developer, wants to develop--”is located in an active (earthquake) fault zone having high slope instability.”

Frank Angel, a lawyer for the Corral Canyon Homeowners Assn., which opposed the project, said the ruling shows that “distant out-of-state developers and their local mercenaries must abide by California’s environmental protection laws just like everybody else.”