Land-Use Plan OKd for Malibu

Racing to meet a legislative deadline, the California Coastal Commission approved a compromise land-use plan Friday for Malibu that generally pleased environmentalists but distressed many property owners, who complained that they could be prevented from making even simple improvements on their homes.

The action protects a considerable amount of coastal sage and chaparral from development, but excludes other areas from such enhanced protection. Going against a staff recommendation, the state commission declined to put a two-year hold on a more than 1-million-square-foot office, retail and housing proposal for the Malibu Civic Center, which is now largely open space.

Mark Massara of the Sierra Club said the commission’s actions will improve protection of Malibu’s rugged coastal mountains. He said the plan’s public-access requirements should further a campaign to open more paths to the beach, which is blocked for long stretches by multimillion-dollar homes.

But Massara also complained that, by failing to put the brakes on the Civic Center proposal, “the commission struck a blow for incoherent planning.”

Malibu city officials were not nearly as satisfied with the plan, which was approved on a 10-1 vote after seven hours of debate. They declined to rule out the possibility of litigation to overturn the plan, citing numerous flaws and building restrictions they said are far too onerous.

“The plan has several shortcomings,” said Mayor Jeff Jennings. “What happens next is an open question.”

Other city officials defended the commission’s decision not to slap a two-year moratorium on the Civic Center plan; they said the proposal will face ample scrutiny to ensure that it is of the proper scale.

Mary Nichols, Gov. Gray Davis’ secretary of resources, called the Local Coastal Program “a good result,” adding, “We resolved most of the issues in a way that was acceptable to the city as well as” the state.

Drafting of the plan was thrust into the hands of the state agency after the city failed for years to create a local coastal plan acceptable to the state. Without such a plan in place, every minor planning decision--from deck expansions to bathroom remodels--had to be approved by the Coastal Commission, which oversees the state’s 1,100-mile shoreline.

Two years ago, politicians in Sacramento, who appoint the 12 voting commissioners, grew weary of being relentlessly lobbied by wealthy residents over their home improvement projects. The Legislature ordered the Coastal Commission to draft and adopt a program for the city by Sept. 15, this Sunday.

After two years of work, two days of contentious hearings and nearly 12 hours of public testimony that at times turned ugly, the commission met that deadline.

Planning decisions in the city will now revert to local officials. Their decisions along more than 20 miles of coastline must comply with the new coastal plan.

The most contentious issue on the table in the prolonged discussions was a proposal by the commission’s staff to designate nearly half the city as “environmentally sensitive habitat areas.”

Building will be sharply limited on those properties. Construction in the designated areas will be limited to 10,000 square feet, or 25% of the parcel, whichever is smaller.

But, as part of the compromise that helped win approval, the commission agreed to exclude most lots on Point Dume from such restrictions. The compromise language also states that, throughout the city, property owners can allow their grading to exceed the restrictions if there is no other economically feasible method that will allow them to build.

Other proposals during the debate would have diluted those restrictions even further.

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Maps Criticized

Coastal Commissioner Cynthia McClain-Hill cast the lone vote against the sensitive-habitat proposal. She said the plan unfairly burdens private property owners. If their property is mistakenly included in the inexact maps of sensitive habitat zones, they will have to spend considerable sums to prove there is no coastal sage or chaparral on their land, or be saddled with the restrictions, McClain-Hill argued.

Several commissioners shared the concern that the maps of the habitat areas are not precise enough, placing an unfair burden on property owners.

Nichols proposed turning to maps drawn in 1986. That option would have included habitat in the mountains, while reducing the protected zones closer to the ocean. The proposal failed by one vote.

With Nichols’ proposal off the table, some worried that the commission would not be able to muster the seven votes needed to pass the entire coastal plan. That led to the discussion of Point Dume. The distinctive outcropping forms the northwest end of Santa Monica Bay and is a largely residential zone.

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Point Dume Exempted

The motion to exclude Point Dume from the heightened protections was approved with the bare six votes needed to amend the plan. Less construction will be permitted, however in two canyons and along creeks that cross Point Dume.

Commissioner Pedro Nava said he thought placing much of Point Dume outside the heightened protection zone was a lost opportunity for the city to restore habitat. He still voted for the overall plan.

“I’m not entirely happy with what’s in here,” Nava said. “There are parts I disagree with, parts I think are inadequate. That doesn’t mean I’m going to take the investment that the community has made, and that this staff and commission has made and, at the last minute, tank the whole deal.”

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Development Approved

Environmentalists said they are most concerned about the commission’s failure to embrace the staff recommendation to put a hold on Civic Center development.

That move means that the principal landowner in the area--Malibu Bay Co., a holding company controlled by billionaire A. Jerrold Perenchio--can move ahead with its plans for a large commercial and residential development.

Perenchio has given more than $900,000 to Gov. Gray Davis and lives not far from the Civic Center in the exclusive Malibu Colony. His representatives have said in the past that Perenchio expects no special treatment because of his donations to Davis, who appoints four of the Coastal Commission’s 12 members.

An environmental impact report for the Civic Center project was released just this week. Under the proposal, Perenchio’s firm and other developers would be able to build a 146-room hotel, restaurants, shops, offices and a storage facility. The proposal calls for open space, a public plaza and day-care centers.

Coastal Commission staff members said they wanted two more years to set a planning template for the critical property, one of the few expansive, flat areas in Malibu that remains undeveloped. The land is squeezed between the Malibu Colony, the Cross Creek shopping center and the Malibu courthouse.

But the commission rejected the two-year delay and city officials gave assurances that citizens will still have ample opportunity to comment on the proposal. The environmental report for the project will be the subject of several workshops in coming months, before city officials vote it up or down. Even then, the plan would go before local voters, probably in June or November of 2003.

Commissioner Patrick Kruer said the city, which has negotiated a development agreement with the developer, would lose out on amenities such as nearly 17 acres of open space, sports fields and a senior citizens/teen center if the project were put on hold.

“It [adds] up to a huge amount of money and land and things that can be utilized by the city,” he said. “To stop the planning process at this point during a two-year moratorium doesn’t make sense to me.”

Kruer proposed that any developments in the city with “visitor serving” components, or with development agreements, not be subject to a moratorium. The commission agreed by a 10-2 vote.

Malibu resident Ozzie Silna said he was generally pleased with the restrictions. But he was concerned that some of the compromises will mean the city won’t measure the cumulative impacts of development.

The commission also made a number of less controversial changes, including increasing the allowable number of horses per acre from three to four, and forbidding discrimination in public access to the shoreline. The plan recommends public paths to the beach every 1,000 feet, a goal that even proponents acknowledged will be tough to meet on the long stretches of beach that are walled off from the public by large homes.

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Public Beach Access

Massara said the Sierra Club will use the new provisions to try to obtain public access to every beach in Malibu.

Nava, who proposed the “environmental justice” measure, said he hopes it sets a precedent for other communities along the coast, ensuring that visitors aren’t excluded because of their income or race.

The vitriol that flowed during Thursday’s meetings, when the commission and its staff were compared to Nazis, was largely absent Friday, as were most members of the public.

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Times staff writer Martha Groves contributed to this report.