The California Coastal Commission is the most powerful State Commission ever formed. This Coastal Commission has drafted its own Local Coastal Plan, (LCP) with its own set of land ESHA maps for Malibu which constitutes a veritable “taking” of land from almost every property owner in Malibu. This is Government without representation as these Commissioners are not elected and do not have to answer to the people.
The City of Malibu submitted our own LCP to the Coastal Commission that the Coastal Commission summarily ignored. Then, in an unprecedented action, the California State Legislature introduced and passed AB988 that gave the Coastal Commission the power to usurp our Local Control and dictate their own version of our LCP. Public hearings were held by the Coastal Commission at out-of-area locations at inconvenient times at which virtually all the public comments were ignored.
The ramifications from this ill-advised legislation are huge. If the State Legislature can simply adopt legislation to dictate a Local Coastal Plan for Malibu, then they are mandating the zoning codes and local ordinances for us as well. This is not a Malibu issue any longer. What they do in Malibu will be precedent setting for other Coastal Cities and LA County as well.
The Coastal Commission’s next objective is to revise all the other coastal cities’ existing LCPs. In fact, the voters narrowly defeated a bill that would have extended the Coastal Commission’s authority to any adjacent areas such as the San Fernando Valley and the entire water shed all the way through to Chatsworth. Any thinking person must acknowledge that this is far from just a local Malibu Issue.
As president of the Malibu Association of Realtors, I am doing all I can to educate and rally our members as well as the general public. We plan to establish a region-wide strategy to defeat this LCP and restore our constitutional private property rights and local government control. We are sounding the alarm. The Coastal Commission is already imposing these new theories on our neighbors in Topanga Canyon, Monte Nido and Calabasas. They plan on revising all the coastal cities’ LCPs to bring them in line with the Malibu LCP. We are appealing to you to do what you can to make your political representatives aware of your opposition to this plan. The Coastal Commission meets in July in Huntington Beach on this issue and we must arise out of our disbelief and apathy now! We are circulating a petition opposing this LCP which I will be taking to Sacramento in June to give to Governor Davis, Speaker Wesson, Senator Kuehl, and Assemblymember Pavley. We ask that you make it a priority to sign the petition now. We will have them placed in supermarkets, gas stations and in willing retail stores for your convenience all around Malibu. If you can’t find one, call 310-456-5566 and ask Gigi where to find one close to you.
Kathryn Yarnell