Malibu city attorney and planning director outline avenues available to citizens in the development process.
By Jimy Tallal / Special to The Malibu Times
The number of development and construction projects now in the pipeline for Malibu’s Civic Center area is unprecedented in the city’s more than 20-year history. Environmental Impact Report (EIR) scoping meetings have been held over the past two months for the 28-acre Rancho Malibu Hotel across from Bluffs Park, the Santa Monica Community College (SMCC) District satellite campus on Civic Center Drive, the six-acre “Whole Foods in the Park” shopping area at Cross Creek and the 24-acre Crummer site subdivision next to Bluffs Park.
Joyce Parker-Bozylinski, planning director for the City of Malibu, said, “We don’t get a lot of commercial development in Malibu, and what’s unusual is getting several big commercial projects all at once in the Civic Center area. The city typically receives residential projects or view blockages.”
Public participation in the scoping meetings was high, and the public comments were almost 100 percent negative. Nearly 58 vacant acres in the Civic Center area are now slated for development in the near future. And on the eventual horizon loom projects such as the centralized wastewater treatment facility due to be built by 2015 in the Civic Center, another 81,000 square feet of office buildings proposed for construction on May 15 next to the Malibu Labor Exchange by the Malibu Bay Company and a 5,000-seat sports complex at Pepperdine University.
The scale of the proposed construction in Malibu, where zoning language explicitly strives to preserve the city’s “rural character,” has unsettled many in the community and sparked calls for the projects to be greatly downsized or rejected. The activist group Preserve Malibu is also formulating a ballot measure that would give city residents the right to approve or deny commercial developments that exceed 25,000 square feet.
As it stands, Parker-Bozylinski said the planning department is required to consider all projects, and from there it goes by the book.
“We can’t refuse an application,” Bozylinski said. “A property owner has the right to submit an application, but there will be lots of opportunities for the public to weigh in.”
City Attorney Christi Hogin told The Malibu Times that community opposition to a project can only go so far, because private property rights are protected by the U.S. Constitution.
“Each vacant piece of property is not up for a community vote,” Hogan said. However, “The property owner doesn’t have an unfettered right to do anything. Zoning rules limit the uses of properties, and are spelled out in the city’s General and Local Coastal Plans.
“The piece of property for that [Ranch Malibu] hotel is zoned for that use, but there’s a range of discretion within that,” Hogin said. “What exactly gets built is highly influenced by community participation.”
The city cannot deny development outright, because that would amount to a taking of the property, which is unconstitutional.
“You have to allow the owner of the property to use it in an economically viable way,” Hogan said.
During the EIR process, public input is solicited three times: at the scoping meeting; the draft EIR and the final EIR. Consistent with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), environmental review is required for all discretionary projects, including City-initiated projects and private development projects.
While it’s natural for members of the public to express opposition to a project during the EIR process, the meetings are not necessarily the best forum for effecting change, city officials say.
“The City Council doesn’t approve the EIR; they certify that it adequately analyzes the impacts of the environment within the requirements of CEQA,” Parker-Bozyklinski said. “This is totally different than deciding on the merits of the project.” Certain projects could get redesigned or modified during the EIR process, Parker-Bozylinski said, but she couldn’t think of any that had been denied outright.
Hogin also said she’s never heard of a developer giving up a project because of having to mitigate environmental impacts.
“The owner has already engaged an architect and engineer, and already has a good idea of a development’s feasibility. Unless somebody unearthed something that nobody knew was there, like an earthquake fault,” Hogin said.
Once the EIR process is completed, the project goes before the city Planning Commission. Parker-Bozylinski feels public input has more potential for impact at a Planning Commission meeting than it does at an EIR meeting. The commission has the power to alter the project if parts of it are not consistent with sections of the city’s zoning codes and regulations.
The commission “has a certain authority to approve or disapprove a project,” Parker-Bozylinski said, when analyzing a project in terms of “development standards, codes, policies, the Local Coastal Plan (LCP), the city’s general plan, conditional use permits (CUPs) and variances.”
And it’s true that public input in Malibu has resulted in a number of projects that were significantly reduced in size or density over what was initially proposed. The original hotel plan from decades ago had 300 rooms, while the project under consideration today has 138 rooms spread throughout 21 casitas.
“The Crummer property was originally approved as a hotel in the 90s, and the Coastal Commission was sympathetic to that,” Hogan said. “The fact that it’s now down to five homes is a big reduction. La Paz is another example. The original proposal was much bigger.”
Decisions made by the Planning Commission can be appealed to the City Council. “I truly believe the council listens to the public, and that’s a good thing,” said Parker-Bozylinski. “They encourage it. It results in better decisions.”