The local property owners association was scheduled to have a meeting after The Malibu Times went to print to determine how it should respond. Also at the meeting, the council created a subcommittee to look at revising municipal campaign laws.
By Jonathan Friedman/Staff Writer
Fearing what could happen if it left the decision to the courts, the City Council voted 4-1 to grant developer Brian Sweeney variances so he could build a 20-foot-wide, 1,660-foot-long private access road connecting the end of Sweetwater Mesa Road to five parcels of undeveloped mountain property he owns above Sweetwater Mesa. The council was under a court order to either approve Sweeney’s request or render a new decision after a judged ruled late last year that the council’s reasons for denying Sweeney’s variance request in 2002 were invalid.
Thirty-three conditions were placed on the council’s approval, including that Sweeney could not build more than the five homes he had proposed for his property and that the private road never be connected to the road north of it, which neighbors feared could lead to a thoroughfare going through Malibu. The Serra Canyon Property Owners Association, which is made up of homeowners in the area, was expected to meet Tuesday after The Malibu Times went to print to determine how it would respond to the decision, but the association’s president said he was disappointed with it.
This private road issue has been a controversial one since it was first proposed in 1999 under a different property owner. The proposal has since gone through several hearings before the Planning Commission and the City Council, as well as before the court. Neighbors, including residents of Serra Retreat, said they fear a Sweeney private road could be connected to Piuma Road, located to the north, creating a thoroughfare across Costa Del Sol, down Sweetwater Mesa Road, through Serra Road to Pacific Coast Highway. They also said that Sweeney could build significantly more than five homes on his county property, further creating traffic problems. The neighbors demanded an environmental impact report be made before the council approved the project. But the councilmembers, minus Mayor Pro Tem Andy Stern, said not to approve the project and let a court decide risked that a judge would not require Sweeney to abide by the conditions the city proposed.
“I would rather take the five houses and every condition that we can impose to ensure they [Sweeney] can build their road; they can put their five houses in, but they can build no more. No más,” Councilmember Ken Kearsley said.
Serra Canyon Property Owners Association President Geoffrey Gee said in a Tuesday telephone interview that he did not know if the conditions set were solid enough to prevent Sweeney from being able to create the thoroughfare or build a large amount of homes on his property. He said the association had several options, including filing a legal challenge to the council’s decision. But he reserved comment on what the association’s next move would be until after its members had discussed the issue at its meeting that was planned for Tuesday night. Gee did say the council made the wrong decision.
“I wanted to have a full EIR,” Gee said. “They [the council] didn’t have enough facts to make a full decision.”
Councilmember Stern said he agreed with that analysis. He said his reasoning for voting against the approval was that he believed there was limited information on the environmental impacts of the project as a whole, including the road and the construction of five homes, for which Sweeney has received tentative approval, on his unincorporated county property. City staff said at Monday’s meeting that the project did not warrant a complete EIR.
Also at the meeting, the council voted to create a subcommittee composed of Kearsley and Councilmember Jeff Jennings to determine whether certain City Council election laws should be changed, including the amount an individual can donate to a candidate’s campaign. Currently, the limit is $100, and a proposal has been made to increase that to at least $500. According to a report by City Attorney Christi Hogin, the reasoning for the proposed increase, which came from a commission that had overseen the recent City Council election, was because of a perception that an uneven playing field was created since independent committees not directly associated with a candidate’s campaign were not limited in how much money they could spend. The public’s input would be sought.
Silence on chili
As reported last week in The Malibu Times, the city is speaking with the Malibu Bay Co. about purchasing the Chili Cook-Off site, the 20-acre property that stretches along Pacific Coast Highway from Cross Creek Road to Webb Way. The item was on the agenda for the closed session, a portion of the meeting during which land negotiations and lawsuits are discussed with only city councilmembers and necessary city staff in attendance. But nothing was said about it during the regular session portion of the meeting. The city attorney is required to inform the public if the council takes any action during the closed session period.
No apologies
During the meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Andy Stern demanded Sierra Club attorney Frank Angel apologize for a comment he made in last week’s issue of The Malibu Times in which he compared the judge’s ruling in the Forge Lodge Bed and Breakfast case to the Dred Scott decision. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a slave named Dred Scott did not have the right to become a free man despite having traveled with his owner to a nonslave state. Angel said the case was similar to the Forge Lodge ruling because the judge had dismissed his argument that the city had not done enough to determine the effect of building the bed and breakfast on what Angel said was a former Chumash Indian village and burial ground.
“It is horrifying to me that anyone would equate in some way, shape or form a bed and breakfast decision with that which legal scholars almost unanimously say was a low point in the United States Supreme Court,” Stern said.
Angel said in a Tuesday telephone interview that he stood by his comment and had nothing to apologize for. He said both cases involved discrimination, making his comparison legitimate.
“The site [where Forge Lodge is proposed to be built] has several hundred burials including chiefs and important Chumash persons. The City Council has rendered a decision refusing to know where these burials are. Those councilmembers who allowed this desecration of Chumash burials; they ought to apologize to the Chumash.”