California Coastal Commission Executive Director Peter Douglas informed the city this week that he has accepted the terms of a letter sent from Malibu to the government agency asking for the Coastal Commission to help the city with making changes to the Malibu Local Coastal Program in exchange for the city withdrawing its LCP amendment application.
The letter states that the Coastal Commission would receive new amendment proposals in phases. The first one would include a set of 20 items that have already been negotiated by the two staffs, some other items decided upon by the two staffs later and no more than three items selected exclusively by the city. Malibu would then draft the amendment and send it to the coastal staff, which would either recommend its approval to the coastal voting body or suggest to the city how the amendment could be modified.
In his response, Douglas requested that Malibu’s selected three items be narrow and not general.
City Manager Katie Lichtig and City Attorney Christi Hogin were expected to meet on Tuesday to decide if they should recommend to the City Council that it accept Douglas’ request. They were expected to give their opinion to the council at Wednesday’s quarterly review meeting. Coverage of the meeting will be included in next week’s issue of The Malibu Times.