As an adjacent homeowner, I’d like to affirm my opposition to the proposed purchase of the old Harris Nursery site for recreation use. There are many legitimate reasons why my neighbors and I are against the purchase of this property for anything other than residential use.
With three known fatalities in front of the site, Caltrans’ visibility concerns and lack of additional right-of-way space will require all passenger and service vehicles to exit west and return east by cramming into the Broad Beach left turn lane while making a U-turn. With solid double lines on the highway, we homeowners must do the same when exiting our driveway. Vehicles traveling east-intending to make the site their destination, will make a similar U-turn at equally inadequate LaHerraran. ALL eastbound PCH traffic signals have a left turn pocket. Lack of right-of-way space precludes this site from a left turn lane. Vehicles traveling 55-65 miles per hour would then encounter a dangerous intersection with eastbound vehicles waiting to turn left in the number two fast lane. We all know there are too many PCH accidents as it is.
Like many in Malibu, our current ingress/egress is a 20 -foot country lane. Are we to assume that we will be sharing our country lane at times with dozens of cars? Isn’t traffic, after all, one of the most important issues facing everyone who lives in Malibu?
The Harris property is by no means a level site, nor is three- quarters of it usable with a 63- foot elevation change in 540 feet. This topography would restrict the site to two pony league fields and limited facilities with no soccer fields or senior center and requires 70,000-plus export yards of grading and 12-foot retaining walls, while single family construction is limited to 1,000 yards and six-foot walls. A title search will also show that the site is divided in half by an easement owned by an opposing neighbor.
It doesn’t make sense to consider a site 21 miles west of the city limit.
Bob Helper