The 27-unit bed and breakfast proposal has been challenged by the Sierra Club, which says the project’s environmental impact report is insufficient.
By Jonathan Friedman/ Assistant Editor
The Sierra Club’s lawsuit to revoke the city-granted permit for the Forge Lodge project will go before a three-judge panel at the California 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles on Aug. 2. Meanwhile, at a meeting on Aug. 10 in Costa Mesa, the California Coastal Commission will decide whether to grant the project a coastal development permit.
In 2003, the City Council approved a permit for Daniel and Luciana Forge to construct a 27-unit, 580-square-foot bed and breakfast on Pacific Coast Highway north of Corral Canyon. The Sierra Club raised several environmental issues regarding the permit, and filed a lawsuit. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs ruled against the Sierra Club, rejecting arguments that the project’s environmental impact report was insufficient. This included allegations that the project would harm the reintroduction of Southern steelhead trout to nearby Solstice Creek, that the project was not a bed and breakfast but rather a hotel for which the site is not zoned, and that not enough had been done by the city to determine the effect on the site’s cultural resources.
Last month, the project went before the Coastal Commission for a coastal development permit. The commission did not vote on the application, and continued it to the August meeting. The project went before the Coastal Commission for a CDP rather than the city because the permit would function as an amendment to one the Forges received several years ago for an 18,000-square-foot shopping center and parking garage, a project the Forges have since scrapped.
Coastal Commission staff has recommended that the commission approve the project at its Aug. 10 meeting, but with a major change from the city approval. The staff said the project should be set back at least 100 feet from the local environmental sensitive habitat area, or ESHA. This is required by the Malibu Local Coastal Program. Since that is a major issue in the Sierra Club’s lawsuit, the Forges attorney, Alan Block, asked Sierra Club attorney Frank Angel if he would withdraw the suit. Angel refused because he said the ESHA was not correctly defined, and the Coastal Commission-recommended setback would still be within the 100-foot threshold of the ESHA.
“Every time somebody satisfies his [Angel’s] complaints, he comes up with something new,” Block said.
Block said the Sierra Club’s lawsuit had reached a point to where it has become frivolous. He said Angel’s allegation that the project lacked a sufficient drainage plan was an opinion only Angel held. Block called the Sierra Club attorney’s suggestion that the project was actually a hotel, “ridiculous.” And he said Angel’s call for a thorough archeological review of the site was unnecessary.
Mark Massara, director of coastal programs for the Sierra Club, looks at the project much differently.
“The reason why the [Coastal] commission is in no position to deliberate on the project, much less vote on it is because it’s half-baked at this time,” he said.
Massara said the application lacks some basic data and information that would be necessary before any government body could approve it. Angel agreed with Massara’s assessment, saying he had never seen an application that was so incomplete.
An archeological survey has already been done of the site and turned up nothing, but Angel said it was incomplete and a more thorough one must be done because he said the project site is a former Chumash Indian village and burial ground that includes priceless artwork.
Angel’s accusation that the project is actually a hotel is based on the Malibu Municipal Code’s definition of a hotel, which states that it is “a facility offering transient lodging accommodations to the general public and providing additional services, such as restaurants and meeting rooms.” Since the Forge-owned Beau Rivage restaurant is next to the project site, Angel said the project would qualify as a hotel. Block said the argument did not fly because Beau Rivage would not be part of the Forge Lodge.
If the Court of Appeal were to rule in favor of the Sierra Club, then the Coastal Commission’s decision would be irrelevant as the city permit would be revoked, and the Forges would have to start over. But if the court were to rule against the Sierra Club and the Coastal Commission approves the project, then construction could begin. But Block said he fears the Sierra Club would then sue over the Coastal Commission ruling. Massara and Angel said it was too early to tell whether that would be necessary, because it would depend on what was included with the Coastal Commission’s approval.