Malibu to Seek Review of Deadline : General Plan: City officials ask for independent examination of a state decision to revoke an extension for completion of the development blueprint. Possible influence by developers is cited.

Complaining that developers may have used political influence to disrupt work on a new General Plan, Malibu officials have appealed a state decision that denies the city more time to complete its blueprint for development in the next 20 years.

But whether the appeal will even be considered remains in doubt.

“We’ve decided to exercise our right to appeal . . . to make sure the decision isn’t arbitrary,” said Malibu City Atty. Christi Hogin. The appeal, she said, was filed with a planning advisory council created to review the March 23 decision made by Lee Grissom, director of the state’s Office of Planning and Research.

Hogin said the city filed the appeal last week under a provision of state law that enables Malibu to have Grissom’s decision reviewed by an independent group of city and county planners.

But Grissom said the panel has not existed since 1981 and that he has no intention of appointing new members. “The decision ends with me . . . and (Malibu officials) still must finish the document under state law,” Grissom said.

In a recent letter to the city, Grissom revoked an earlier decision to give Malibu additional time to complete its draft General Plan. Grissom said he took the action because Malibu had not made adequate provisions for low-income housing and had lagged behind in its scheduled completion of the plan. The city originally wrote Grissom that it would release a copy of its draft General Plan on Jan. 25, Grissom said. The city then moved the date to April 7, then to April 17, and finally to June 6. “And it is all documented on their letterhead,” he said.

City officials have asserted that Grissom, appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson, may have taken the unprecedented move against Malibu under pressure from developers who have been frustrated by the city’s ban on mixed-use development until a General Plan is adopted.

“We know that the Malibu Bay Co. has corresponded with the Office of Planning and Research and (Grissom) also made a reference to Pepperdine University’s interest in multifamily development in the civic center area,” said Councilman Jeffrey W. Kramer, who, along with Hogin, met with Grissom after receiving the revocation letter.

Despite raising the question of political influence, the city has not asked for any state or local investigation into the matter, Hogin said.

Grissom called the allegation of political interference “categorically untrue.”

“At no time, either inside or outside the government, has anyone put any pressure on us,” he said. “The whole reason for pulling the extension was because the city failed to comply with a schedule for completion that they had drawn up.”

Grissom acknowledged that he has received letters from many in the community, including Malibu Bay Co., owned by the Perenchio and Konheim families and one of the largest commercial landholders in Malibu. A. Jerrold Perenchio, the father of Malibu Bay President John Perenchio, was one of the top 20 contributors to Wilson’s 1994 reelection campaign.

John Perenchio said he sent a letter to Grissom criticizing the plan’s “defects” such as “radical downzoning.” The downzoning, he said, violates the state’s Coastal Act.

“If that is lobbying,” he said, “I’m guilty of it.”

Grissom also said he has received letters from representatives of Pepperdine, which owns about 16 acres in the Civic Center area through a subsidiary called Wave Properties Inc. But Michael O’Neal, vice chancellor of the university and president of Wave Properties, said suggestions that the university lobbied the governor’s office are “ludicrous.”

“We’re not particularly happy with the way the General Plan is going, but we feel it needs to work its way through,” O’Neal said.

In 1991, Malibu Bay and Wave Properties sued to make the city overturn its interim zoning ordinance, a measure that prohibits commercial development until a General Plan is adopted. Wave Properties dropped out of the lawsuit in December, 1993, to avoid mounting legal costs and as a conciliatory gesture to the city.

Malibu Bay has continued the litigation, arguing that the zoning ordinance was adopted in violation of a state law that requires that the city conduct an environmental impact report before writing it into law.