The mayor says the View Protection Task Force wasted time and money on drafting a viewshed ordinance, as, he says, it has not authority to do so.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
Less than two weeks after Malibu City Council members declared the Malibu View Restoration and Preservation Ordinance as their top priority, the View Protection Task Force approved a proposed rough draft of such an ordinance in a 7-2 vote on Monday during a special meeting at city hall.
Mayor Andy Stern, however, said the task force is wasting their time.
“They are drafting an ordinance and they were never asked to do that,” Stern said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “What they were asked to do is gather community input.
“They have no clue, no insight of what the council would want from an ordinance,” Stern said. “It’s up to the council to draft one.”
The View Protection Task Force Committee was created last year after more than 60 percent of Malibu residents voted in the April election for the council to adopt a viewshed ordinance to protect primary views from property landscaping.
The council in February voted 4-1 to direct the task force to gather community input from different neighborhoods, but Stern, the only dissenting vote, said the other council members did not specify the format with which the information could be delivered.
“The other council members said it could be in the form of an ordinance but only as a form of information,” Stern said. “For people who want an ordinance, they [the task force] have squandered time and money.”
Sam Hall Kaplan, chair of the View Protection Task Force, said Tuesday in a telephone interview that the task force has saved the city a quarter of a million dollars worth of work.
“We drew the draft ordinance because the city would have turned it to attorneys, [which] would have cost them a huge amount of money and they wouldn’t have gotten a strong document,” Kaplan said, adding that the task force includes experienced attorneys and residents Harold Greene, Barry Tyerman and Rodney Perlman.
“I think his comment is irresponsible as the mayor, disappointing as a resident and an indication of the recalcitrance of our inbred local politicians,” Kaplan said.
The ordinance, as proposed, only regulates foliage and would require property owners to remove or trim trees that impact the primary views (or “visually impressive scenes” like those of the ocean or of prominent landmarks like the Malibu Pier) of neighboring private homes. It would also entitle property owners to restore and preserve a primary view that existed at the time they acquired their property.
Numerous residents whose primary views have been impeded by new construction say the ordinance should also regulate the view obstructions caused by non-foliage structures, which, among others, include tennis courts and basketball backstops.
Kaplan on Tuesday said non-foliage obstruction is addressed in the city’s land use plan, but the problem is that the city does not enforce it.
“In Malibu, the city has certainly been recalcitrant in code enforcement for landscape plans and has taken a hands-off policy,” Kaplan said. “If the city enforced it, a lot of these problems would not exist. The more resolved the city is and willing to take the strong stand, the fewer cases it will have.
“Another problem has been the increase of absentee [home] owners, part timers, who are more concerned with their privacy than being a good neighbor,” Kaplan said.
The Malibu View Restoration and Preservation Ordinance is primarily fashioned from that of the City of Palos Verdes, well known for its stringency. Kaplan said a heavily enforced ordinance will force people to resolve the view-related issues amongst themselves before asking for municipal mediation.
“Within the last 20 years in Palos Verdes, a city twice the size [of Malibu], they’ve averaged four cases a year of people applying for mediation,” Kaplan said. “There have been so few cases because people don’t want to get involved in the process, which will end up costing money.”
The task force will host a public hearing to receive community input on the prospective ordinance at city hall on May 28, at 3 p.m.