The City Council is being asked to support a plan that would supersede its proposal to ban overnight camping in Malibu.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
The City Council will vote Monday whether to support the plan for overnight camping and other parks enhancements in Malibu by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and its sister organization the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority. However, the council will most likely vote against the plan, as the city has already submitted a proposal to ban overnight camping within city limits. The California Coastal Commission will vote on the conservancy plan next year, as well as consider the rival plan by Malibu. City and conservancy officials agree a courtroom is the final destination for both proposals.
The overnight camping issue comes before the council once more because of a recent decision by California Coastal Commission staff that the conservancy’s request for camping sites and other enhancements is “a public works project that meets the public needs of an area greater than” Malibu. This decision enables the Coastal Commission voting body to hear the item.
The city is being given an opportunity to support the plan by adding it to its recently submitted Local Coastal Program amendment request to the Coastal Commission for an overnight camping ban. City staff has recommended against this and no council member has publicly endorsed this idea.
Conservancy Executive Director Joe Edmiston said this week he doubts the council would support the conservancy’s plan, but he said he has some hope the city leaders will “do the right thing” and vote for it.
“I believe the powers of the good Lord can bring inspiration even in the hour of one’s utmost peril,” Edmiston said.
The conservancy’s proposal comes in the form of what is known in the California Code of Regulations as a Local Coastal Program Amendment Override Procedure. This type of application, which is rare, can be made if a public works project or energy facility development is being requested that meets “public needs of an area greater than” the local jurisdiction, and if the request was not anticipated by the applicant making it when the LCP was certified by the Coastal Commission.
City Attorney Christi Hogin made no secret of her opposition to the conservancy’s application and the Coastal Commission staff’s support of it. In her report included in the agenda for Monday’s meeting she wrote the conservancy’s proposal does not qualify for this override procedure because it is not a specific public works project or energy facility, but rather a long-range public works plan. Also, she wrote, overnight camping was anticipated when the LCP was certified. Furthermore, she said, the Coastal Commission should address and vote on the city’s LCP amendment request, which was submitted first, before dealing with the conservancy’s override plan. “[The conservancy is] attempting to employ a tactic to have the city’s Local Coastal Program amended as the conservancy desires and over the city’s objections,” Hogin wrote. “The executive director of the California Coastal Commission made an extraordinary decision that assists the conservancy’s cause.”
Hogin said in an interview this week that the conservancy was “trying to go over the city’s head.
“The Coastal Act [the document by which all LCPs are based] is not set up to override local plans except in very narrow circumstances,” Hogin continued. “If the conservancy were planning to build a nuclear power facility, that would be something different. But they aren’t.”
Edmiston said this week his plan qualifies as a public works project, and he says he has attorneys to back that up as well as Coastal Commission staff. He disagreed with Hogin’s accusation the conservancy is going around the city since the council has an opportunity to discuss and vote on the proposal at Monday’s meeting.
“What we have is Christi Hogin, who is a paid advocate of the city, telling the City Council what they want to hear,” Edmiston said.
Coastal Commission Deputy Director John Ainsworth, who wrote a letter to the city informing it of the staff’s decision, said this week the conservancy’s proposal could be classified as a public works project because it meets the definition of “public works” in the Coastal Act. The definition includes “all publicly financed recreational facilities,” although it does not differentiate between what is a “project” and what is a “plan.”
The conservancy’s proposal calls for 29 overnight camping sites at the parks in Ramirez, Escondido and Corral canyons, 32 major events per year at the conservancy’s Ramirez Canyon property, a 32-space parking lot at the top of Winding Way and improvements to local trails to create the Coastal Slope Trail that would connect the east and west ends of Malibu. This is nearly identical to a plan first proposed in 2006, but with the added feature that the conservancy is willing to do an environmental impact review.
Half a loaf
When the conservancy first proposed its plan two years ago, Malibu residents and officials vehemently opposed it because of various concerns, including risk of fires, and that the plan only needed to go before the Coastal Commission for approval, avoiding city review. But in early 2007, city and conservancy officials came up with a compromise that, among other things, reduced the number of camping sites, including removing them from Escondido Canyon and placing them in the city-owned Charmlee Wilderness Park. The compromise also allowed for the council to vote on the proposal. But residents vociferously opposed any plans that included overnight camping.
The planning Commission endorsed most of the features of the compromise in October, but the October 2007 fire occurred, fueling more opposition to the plan. The council heard the item in late November, but was unable to reach a decision. The item was continued to early December. Prior to the next meeting, the Corral fire in late November destroyed 53 homes. With residential opposition to the plan stronger than ever, the council in early December voted to reject nearly the whole plan, except for the trail improvements. The council also voted to submit an LCP amendment to the Coastal Commission to ban overnight camping within Malibu. Later that month, the conservancy began its LCP override procedure.
“Because the process didn’t go the way the conservancy wanted, [Edmiston] decided instead of getting half a loaf, he’s going to go for the whole loaf,” Councilmember John Sibert said this week. “It’s going too far.”
Edmiston said he was not surprised to hear that comment from Sibert, who was on the Planning Commission when it reviewed the compromise in October and supported the overnight camping portion. Edmiston said Sibert is trying to “run away from that.”
He added, “We had a compromise and we didn’t get a loaf. We got three crumbs. We’re now presenting what we would have presented prior to the compromise. That whole compromise was rejected and aggressively so.”
Edmiston said he does not plan to attend the council meeting on Monday.
“I don’t get paid enough to be abused by the Malibu City Council,” Edmiston said. “I went through a year’s worth of that and it ended up being for nothing.”
He said he would send the conservancy’s consultant in charge of the project, April Verbanic, to make a presentation.
The Coastal Commission will most likely hear the conservancy’s proposal sometime early next year. Coastal Commission Deputy Director Ainsworth said the commission will hear the city’s LCP amendment request first, although both applications could be heard during the same meeting. The hearing on the city’s request must take place no later than March.
It may be a tough task for the city to get its request approved, because Coastal Commission Executive Director Peter Douglas has already made it clear he opposes it. Although he does not vote on the commission, his opinion is influential. “I would suggest they could save everyone’s time, energy and money by dropping that idea,” Douglas told The Malibu Times in December. “The Coastal Act is clearly in support of public access and visitor-serving accommodations. I don’t know what they’re thinking.”
Despite this view, Sibert said he hopes city and conservancy staffs can meet during the next several months to discuss the idea. Also, he said, city officials and residents can plead their case to the Coastal Commission voting body next year.
“I think there are enough sound arguments that that degree of camping in those volatile areas is not safe,” Sibert said.
But Sibert and Edmiston said the various issues would likely be sorted out in a courtroom. There are already lawsuits on file and others have been threatened by various homeowner groups opposed to different features of the plan, as well as by the city.
“As is often the case in Malibu, a man or woman in a black robe is going to be making the final decision,” Sibert said.