Conservancy’s Plans for Events Anger Residents

The new Barbra Streisand Center for Conservancy Studies in Malibu is drawing fire from nearby Ramirez Canyon residents who are enraged over plans to use the 24-acre estate for events that may have nothing to do with conservancy.

“The property is going to be used for commercial purposes, a catering facility, to support it,” said Mindy Shep, an attorney and seven-year canyon resident. “If the center was being run the way it was presented to us initially, for groups of 20 to talk about the environment, then it would be OK.”

The 60 Ramirez Canyon residents object to the center’s plans to generate income for the center by leasing it out for conferences and meetings that may not be related to environmental issues.

Singer Barbra Streisand donated the land to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy in December, 1993. At the time, residents say, conservancy officials who run the center assured them the facility would be used by groups of 20 or fewer environmentalists as an ecological think tank.

But to make the center self-supporting, center officials are now proposing to lease the facility to groups of 35 twice a week, groups of 200 six times a year and a group of 400 once a year. There would be no requirement that meetings or conferences be related to conservation.

Conservancy officials say they have no choice but to seek a broad source of income. Before approving the donation of the Streisand land to the conservancy, they point out, the state required that the center be self-supporting.

Such conflict is expected to escalate in the coming months as the conservancy applies to the California Coastal Commission for a coastal development permit for the center. Conservancy officials initially said they did not need to apply for the permit, but agreed to do so under pressure from residents.

As part of the coastal development permit process, the conservancy must draft an environmental impact report and residents will be given the opportunity to publicly state their complaints and concerns.