The Malibu City Council, in a 5 to 0 vote on July 27 of last year, agreed to change the rules governing home offices after hearing testimony that the existing ordinance was so restrictive it virtually outlawed most home offices.
Now, almost seven months later, nothing has happened on this issue, and the item sits in a long queue of issues awaiting action.
The old zoning rules had prohibited employees, or even occasional customers, in one’s home office. This meant that lawyers, CPAs, psychiatrists, therapists, Web designers, writers, editors, artists, designers and many others could not legally run their businesses from their homes without having to worry that they were violating the law, and worry about the ever present threat of code enforcement officers appearing at their door.
The dilemma was part of a larger code enforcement issue that had come up in the 1998 election campaign. The council began its promised reform of the home office portion of the Interim Zoning Ordinance because it appeared, in a council consensus, that the rules were out-of-step with current electronic realities–homes were now wired with computers and faxes and Internet connections.
A staff report to the council had suggested allowing up to three employees in a home setting, and a number of other changes that dealt with signage, meetings, deliveries, hours and excluded businesses.
The discussion at the council meeting showed there were still many questions left to be decided, but councilmembers were clear in their intentions that they wanted to legalize most low-impact home businesses. They were headed toward approving a rational set of new rules to level out the playing field between home businesses and large estates that have countless employees coming in and out of their properties.
The council directed staff to send council comments to the Planning Commission, which is the next stop in the process to change the zoning ordinance.
At a recent council land-use subcommittee meeting on Jan 24, someone asked subcommittee members Mayor Pro Tem Joan House and Councilmember Jeff Jennings why nothing has happened. They also asked why it took so long to get the changes made even after the council had unanimously decided to make changes. The councilmembers thought the delays might relate to the city’s high staff turnover and the changeover in city managers, as well as recent elections that may have delayed the staff’s ability to work on the matter. They said they would look into it.
“The thing about home offices is that this was an easy one,” said Anne Hoffman, a community activist who has been involved in code enforcement matters for over a year. The home office ordinance changes would allow for more flexibility in the rules, and would eliminate the nonsensical restrictions that are currently in place for people who choose to work at home, she said.
The current law dictates a conditional-use permit is needed to operate a home office; technically, under the current rules, real estate agents cannot operate out of their own homes.
The proposed simplified rules would allow an employee to work in the home office and it would minimize special permit requirements.
“It’s stalled somewhere in the catacombs of the staff, ” said Hoffman. “That leads one to question–the commitment of City Council to improving any of the conditions created by the code.”
When planning staff was asked for an estimate of when the home office issue would get to the Planning Commission, they speculated not before March. The Planning Commission would then, as required by law, hold a public hearing on it, vote, and then pass it back to the City Council. The council would then hold another public hearing and craft an ordinance, which would have to come back for both a 1st and 2nd hearing before it could be enacted. Estimates were, even in a best case scenario, a year from the first 5 to 0 council action before actual changes in the zoning ordinance will be made.
The Malibu Times asked Interim City Manager Christi Hogin what caused the delays and what could be done to speed up the process. She described the procedure she follows to try and speed up council matters, and also track progress. The day following a council meeting, she holds a staff meeting with all department heads to review the council action of the night before, while it’s still fresh in everyone’s mind. Assignments are made to specific departments, with one department taking charge of a particular item to carry it forward. But then, that item gets into a queue with all other items on the department’s to-do list.
Also, a couple of days after a meeting, an action agenda is completed by the council secretary, outlining what action steps the council decided upon, and it is distributed. But the linchpin of all this is still staffing availability and the clarity, or sometimes the lack of clarity, of the council’s intentions.
Quarterly, all departments report to the council to review their priorities and their “to-do” lists, so the council can decide if it wants to rejuggle priorities.
In the meantime, the changes in the home office rules are stuck in the queue along with a number of other ordinances waiting for someone to pick them up and move them ahead.
Publisher Arnold G. York contributed to this story