City That Defies Stereotype Formulating Land-Use Plan : Communities: Malibu is 26 miles long and one mile wide. Other cities have not proven to be very useful as models.

Russ Wolpert remembers the time he drove some friends along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. As they passed the Civic Center area, one passenger inquired, “Where’s Malibu?”

Because 125 acres in the Civic Center remain largely undeveloped, and since the majority of commercial development in Malibu lies in strip malls along the highway, Wolpert noted, the new city lacks a true town center.

But Wolpert, chairman of the task force charged with recommending to the Malibu City Council a comprehensive land use plan for the city, has a dream: “The Civic Center ought to be a really terrific community focal point with a lot of open space.”

Incorporated March 28, 1991, the city is required by state law to develop a General Plan within 30 months.

In Malibu, the task is particularly difficult because other cities are not very useful as models. The planning challenges are unique when the city in question is 26 miles long, one mile wide, squeezed between the ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains and has but one major highway.

Most future development is likely to occur in the Civic Center and the Escondido and Trancas Canyon areas. Elsewhere, some development of individual parcels remains possible, but a widespread sentiment to keep Malibu the way it is will probably continue to limit new projects.

Community residents will contribute significantly to Malibu’s future blueprint. The General Plan Task Force is composed of 23 citizen planners. Among the issues they are grappling with in draft form are these:

* How best to create a vibrant mixed-use village on 125 acres in the Civic Center to serve as the city’s hub.

* How to develop standards for open space.

* How to ensure that future development is “compatible with a rural lifestyle.”

* How to preserve residential character as a priority “over visitor-serving and tourist-oriented commercial uses.”

* How to provide housing that is affordable to people of low and moderate income, as required by law, in a community where 750-square-foot guest houses can rent for $1,000 per month.

* How to discourage “mansionization.”

In describing what can be built and where, the General Plan will also set the city’s policy for dealing with development in the vicinity of the Malibu Coast Fault, a network of earthquake faults roughly parallel to the coast for much of the city’s length.

A recent geotechnical report prepared for the General Plan consultants outlines development concerns near the 17-mile Malibu Coast Fault Zone. Limitations on building will also depend on the conclusions of a state report on the fault due later this year.

A wide range of development restrictions are already in place in Malibu, many of them temporary. The City Council imposed a moratorium on commercial development at its first meeting after incorporation, for example. City officials say they also expect enactment of an interim zoning ordinance in the coming months while the General Plan is being hammered out.

Task force members say they hope to present a draft of the General Plan to the City Council early next year, but additional workshops for residents are planned before that occurs. Public hearings would be scheduled once the plan reaches the council.

If the democratic process means repeatedly asking constituents their druthers, Malibu’s volunteer citizen planners are leading the way.

“It’s wonderful that there is the type of democracy where citizens have a direct and active voice in the creation or re-creation of their community,” said Wolpert, an attorney.

“We have no illusion we’re going to have the final say,” Wolpert noted, “but at least we’re involved in the process.”

With 23 members on the task force, democracy sometimes can be time-consuming. Take, for example, the recent drafts on goals, objectives and policies. Wolpert estimates that about 1,000 different items went into the draft. If the task force were to spend two hours on each item, “You can do the multiplication,” he said of the time it takes to gather consensus.

City Planner Bob Benard, the staff professional who is working with the task force and with the city’s paid consultant to prepare the General Plan, likens the process of determining goals to playing cards.

“It’s like having a deck of 52 cards, all laid out,” he said. “Now the task force is putting them in matching suits.”

Naturally, the General Plan process is not without controversy, particularly in the Civic Center.

John Perenchio, a task force member and vice president of Malibu Bay Co., which owns nearly half the vacant land in the Civic Center, believes the task force erred in recommending no residential development.

“To really make a vibrant village atmosphere,” Perenchio said, “you need all the elements of land use--open space, playgrounds, people to live there, commercial, cafes, a creek-side walk, marshland habitat. . . . It has to make economic sense.”