From the Publisher
Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to solve a problem when you’re the one who doesn’t have to do the actual solving? Sit down in any coffee shop in Malibu and everyone will tell you exactly how to solve the problems of Malibu. We all know it’s simple. Right?
It’s the same with the proposed Malibu Bay Company Development Agreement-Measure M, which goes on the Nov. 4 ballot. There is a slew of critics out there who claim this isn’t the perfect deal, and they’re absolutely right. If it were the perfect deal for those critics, it most certainly wouldn’t be an acceptable deal for Malibu Bay Company. The reality is, unless both sides can agree there is no deal at all.
There is an unspoken thought that if the Malibu Bay Company is willing to accept this deal, then obviously there must be a trick and it can’t be a good deal for the rest of us. A really good deal would be one the Malibu Bay Company would not accept. That logic is absurd and it begins to sound like a Catch 22.
Despite what many of you have heard, I really don’t believe it’s all that complicated. Let’s start with the given.
The given is that the Civic Center area will ultimately be developed. That development will bring some good things and some bad. How much development and how fast it will happen is open to question, but one thing is indisputable-it will happen.
The bad things that could occur from development are that it will increase the number of people around and probably the traffic. The good thing is if you have a plan, some of the bad things can be managed, or at least can be mitigated. Another good thing is a plan affords us a historical opportunity to design our town center with a developer with good taste and the funds to do it properly. If the Civic Center property gets sold, or developed parcel-by-parcel, it becomes a crapshoot as to what it will ultimately look like.
If the Malibu Bay Development Agreement passes, it means the town will develop with a plan. With a plan you can design roads, parking structures, wastewater treatment plants, add ball fields; and clean up the lagoon, the creek and the surf line. Perhaps we might even have a central park in the center of town, which, to my mind, would be great. You can also get the developer to kick in some money (amenities) for many of those items.
But let’s look at the alternatives. Let’s suppose Measure M doesn’t pass. In other words, the people go to the polls on Nov. 4 and turn it down. What happens then?
I’ll tell you what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean there is no development in the Civic Center. (My apologies for last week’s column. We had a typo in my column and left out a very significant word, “Not.”) In other words, if we turn down measure M, there are a number of scenarios that could occur.
One is the Civic Center area will be developed parcel-by-parcel without an overall plan. If that happens, it most probably will end up looking like Pacific Coast Highway, or perhaps like the business park on Las Virgenes Road on the north side of Freeway 101, in the city of Calabasas. I believe we can do better than that. We don’t have to have a business park. It can be a smaller version of Montecito or Half Moon Bay or any one of dozens of lovely small California cities.
There are some critics who appear to believe that if we turn this down, Perenchio will have to come back to renegotiate the deal and we’ll end up doing better. There are some developer deals where that actually is true, where you can force the developer into a stress situation and he has to negotiate to build or sell. The problem is, anyone who believes that in this case simply doesn’t read the financial papers. I would guess we, as a city, would be in distress long before Mr. Perenchio.
I believe Measure M is an opportunity for us. Think of what we don’t have in this town. We don’t have a city hall. We don’t have a community center. We don’t have city parks and ball fields, or a really good after-school program. We don’t have a place for seniors to live if they want to sell their homes and remain in the community. We don’t have a decent library. We don’t have a community emergency room or hospital. We don’t have a hotel with banquet facilities. We don’t have extra money to kick in to help the schools because we don’t have any revenue generators like the significant hotel transit tax. We don’t have any highway beautification. Heck, we don’t even have a bookstore.
We’ve spent a great deal of our time and money since becoming a city in 1991 fighting over reports, plans, visions, never agreeing and as a result, getting very little done. I remember the Civic Center General Plan, the Civic Center Specific Plan, and, earlier, the Malibu Bay Company Plan, plus multiple variations. At some point we have to make some decisions or we’ll spent the next decade or two fighting over plans.
If we turn down Measure M, the message is clear to anyone owning undeveloped land- that is, don’t waste your time talking or trying to work something out because when it comes to decision point, they’ll always find some reason to say no.
It seems to me we can either be proactive and support Measure M, and try and develop a town we’re all proud of, or we can end up letting some judge or group of judges design Malibu. I believe the latter would be a disaster.