County supervisors last week approved the purchase of a nearly one-acre parcel at Dan Blocker Beach, clearing the way for a much-anticipated plan to make the public beach more accessible.
The $400,000 acquisition of the parcel allows the county to begin final plans and budgeting for the “Dan Blocker Beach Access Project,” estimated to cost approximately $5.5 million. The one-mile stretch of beach runs from Latigo Shore Drive east to Corral Canyon Road along Pacific Coast Highway. A Board of Supervisors staff report estimates the improvement project will get underway in May 2013 and be completed in September 2014.
Actors Michael Landon and Lorne Greene, who bought the beach and named it after their co-star Blocker, a.k.a. “Hoss,” on the western-themed television show “Bonanza,” donated the property to the state in 1979. Greene and Landon intended the land to be used for public recreation. After acquiring a couple of pieces of neighboring land, the state donated Dan Blocker Beach to the county in 1995.
But the one-mile stretch of beach has remained encumbered by tattered fencing, unappealing portable bathrooms, a lack of public parking and public roadways while the county was slow to get to work on improvements.
After growing tired of the county’s lack of work on the site, Malibu City Councilman John Sibert and then-City Councilman Jefferson Wagner proposed in 2011 that the county should hand over control of the beach to the City of Malibu, which does not operate any city beaches.
“If the county can’t find this financing to open the beach, I was hoping that the city might be able to step up and get the beach open,” Wagner said last December. “We would have our own City of Malibu beach … Shouldn’t the city have the right to open a public area?”
Sibert relayed complaints from neighboring homeowners who said people often throw late-night parties on the beach and trespass on private property to use the restroom.
“If it does become an actual beach [with access] then sheriffs can stop there and patrol,” Sibert said in an interview on Monday.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, whose Third District includes Malibu, attributed the delays to the slow acquisition of more neighboring land needed to complete public access improvements. He expressed relief and excitement at the prospect of getting the project up and running.
“The long saga of providing public access to Dan Blocker beach is finally in the home stretch,” Yaroslavsky said in a statement to The Malibu Times. “I am very excited that we are finally getting this project done. We have faced a lot of complexities, including acquisition of needed adjacent properties. The coast is now clear, and we are ready to deliver this project to the public.”
Funding for the project is expected to come from money collected by the Safe Neighborhood Parks Proposition passed in 1996, state fees collected from vehicle license fees and the Los Angeles County 2012-2013 capital project/refurbishment budget.
Sibert said he was optimistic about the county’s project now that the final parcel was purchased.
“My concern is not that it’s a city beach or a county beach but that it become a beach that the public can use,” he said. “I think everybody will win on this one.”
A rough draft of the plan allots for 15 public parking spaces, a public restroom and wastewater treatment system, picnic and viewing areas, a bike rack and a handicap-accessible ramp from the top of the bluff area down to the beach area. Staffers are expected to present a finalized draft of the project to the board in January.
An initial study examining the project’s compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act said there would not be any significant environmental impact once work on the beach begins, according to the staff report.