Coastal Plan Has Malibu Up in Arms

The California Coastal Commission on Thursday moved to dump “Malibu Days,” the daylong sessions when state officials in charge of the entire 1,100-mile coastline get bogged down in home remodels, deck expansions and other projects of Malibu’s wealthy residents.

Specifically, the commissioners unanimously adopted a draft coastal development plan for Malibu, designed to force city officials to make the tough calls and instruct property owners to scale back building plans when they violate the state Coastal Act.

If all goes as state leaders hope, Malibu’s rich and powerful will stop lobbying in Sacramento every time the Coastal Commission threatens to turn down a new sea wall or deck expansion.

Yet Malibu leaders strenuously objected to many parts of the commission’s local coastal plan, which lays out development policies for the city’s 27 miles of coastline.

Jeff Jennings, Malibu’s mayor pro tem, said the plan is too inflexible, too broad in some areas and too narrow in others. As a result, he said, the city may be forced to sue to preserve its options.

City leaders and property-rights advocates have objected to reining in new homes to 10,000 square feet and forcing some property owners to make a choice on amenities: build a swimming pool or a tennis court, but not both.

They don’t like the commission’s zoning restrictions or definitions of sensitive habitat, which could prevent some types of development and cut back others.

They take issue with the commission’s goals of opening access ways every 1,000 feet to allow the public to reach beaches that are blocked by shoulder-to-shoulder oceanfront homes.

Mostly, they asked the commission to postpone any action so that city leaders could negotiate a more palatable plan.

“All we are asking is a reasonable opportunity to present you the issues in an orderly manner,” Jennings said.

But commissioners said they faced a tight deadline imposed by state law.

“We are under a very, very short timeline,” said Sara Wan, the Coastal Commission’s chairwoman. “It’s time to move forward.”

The commission was acting on orders of Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco), Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) and Gov. Gray Davis, who have grown weary of the lobbying by Malibu’s elite. Each of these three leaders appoints one-third of the 12-member commission.

These three leaders last year pushed through a law that ordered the commission to do something that Malibu has failed to do in its decade as an incorporated city: draw up a local coastal plan. The law required the commission to submit a draft to the city by Tuesday and iron out final implementing rules by Sept. 15.

“The governor and the leadership of both houses wanted to get away from the drain on the Coastal Commission’s time and eliminate a source of a huge amount of bad feelings because they are acting as the neighborhood zoning board,” said Mary Nichols, the governor’s secretary of resources.

The Coastal Act passed in 1976 requires cities and counties to adopt local coastal plans to provide a blueprint for development. A number of local governments have never done so. But none has created as much work--and ill feelings--for the commission as Malibu, which has a rare combination of rugged beauty, sensitive habitat and development pressure.

Letters demonizing the commission have poured in from Malibu, several likening it to the British Empire at the time of the American Revolution.

Malibu Planning Commissioner Ted Vaill, for instance, noted that he is a descendant of a Revolutionary War hero who led the Green Mountain Boys to take a British garrison. “I am thinking of forming the Santa Monica Mountain Boys (and Girls) to protect the interests of the residents of Malibu from outsiders,” he wrote.

The most boisterous reaction during Thursday’s daylong public hearing was over the plan to remove soccer fields and baseball diamonds at Malibu Bluffs State Park.

The California Department of Parks and Recreation, which owns the bluffs, wants to restore the natural vegetation for hikers and picnickers. It wants to put a visitors’ center there, as a gateway to state and federal parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The Coastal Commission allowed the playing fields to be built there temporarily in the 1980s, until local officials could find another site for them. More than 15 years later, local officials have yet to find an alternative site, although they are in negotiations with a neighboring landowner.

During the public hearing, more than 50 youth soccer players and Little Leaguers in uniform urged commissioners not to take away their ballparks.

“Could you please save the Bluffs Park,” begged Ryan O’Neill. “I wouldn’t be able to practice without the park.”

Wan assured the children that the new policy would not rob them of playing fields. “Contrary to what you’ve been told,” Wan said, “No one will cut off your fields until others are found. No one is going to take your fields away.”

The adults were more likely to take issue with the commission’s designation of most of Malibu’s remaining open space as sensitive habitat, crucial to the survival of many rare species. Properties in these areas are subject to tougher building restrictions.

They also bickered over the commission’s strategy to limit sea walls being used to protect oceanfront homes and plans to clean up leaky septic tanks that continue to foul Malibu’s beaches.

Malibu leaders feared that the commission’s adoption of the plan would leave no room for alterations, even if they can mount a persuasive case for changes.

Peter Douglas, the commission’s executive director, said such fears are unfounded. “It’s not done until it’s done,” he said. “I don’t understand what all of the fuss is about.”