Although the city already approved final plans for the Trancas Park project, the ire of residents over the destruction of the ridgeline above the park cause the city to readdress the plans.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
In face of criticism and outcry, the city has devised a new development plan for Trancas Park that will cost an additional $300,000 but will spare approximately 27.5 feet of Trancas ridge from being graded. Some Malibu West residents, however, say it’s not enough.
The Planning Commission is expected to review the new development plan at its meeting on May 19.
In March, the council green-lighted the $3.4 million project by denying two appeals against the park’s environmental impact report and conditional use permit in a 3-2 vote, with council members Pamela Conley Ulich and Jefferson Wagner dissenting.
According to a city report, the approved project will require approximately 126,528 cubic yards of grading to stabilize slopes and make the park’s proposed amenities accessible by people of all abilities.
The approved development plan for Trancas Park, a seven-acre public park on a 13.5-acre site located at 6050 Trancas Canyon Road, approximately a half mile north of the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway, will contain a multiuse (practice-only) sports field, a basketball half-court, picnic area, tot-lot, dog park, a restroom/maintenance building, storage building, shade structures, onsite wastewater treatment system, parking area and a storm water detention basin.
Residents have long opposed the grading of Trancas Ridge, a local ridgeline situated above the park property, because, they say, native flora and fauna habitats would be destroyed as well as its natural beauty.
In response to their continued efforts to prevent the ridgeline from grading, Mayor Pro Tem Sharon Barovsky agreed to meet with residents to try and reach a compromise.
“I had heartburn over the whole ridgeline issue,” Barovsky said Friday in a telephone interview. “I was happy to be able to revisit it and I was delighted to see that when you put sane, civil people together you actually can get compromise.”
The meeting took place last week and was attended by seven Malibu West residents who represented different factions of Trancas Park, City Manager Jim Thorsen, and Parks and Recreation Director Bob Stallings.
“There is a variety of reasons that people have objected to or supported the park,” Stallings said Monday in a telephone interview. “What Councilmember Barovsky tried to do is bring everyone together in this meeting to compromise on a design that would be embraced by the entire community.”
To spare some of the ridge from being graded, the dog park was reduced from three quarters of an acre to approximately half an acre, Thorsen explained Monday in a telephone interview.
Other modifications include the removal of several picnic tables and a shade structure, relocation of the access ramp, relocation of the dog park entrance to the opposite side, and the addition of 720 feet of retaining walls that will be heavily vegetated to protect residents’ privacy.
The $300,000 will be spent on importing dirt to balance the field areas in the park that would have been filled with dirt acquired from the graded ridge.
Though the majority of residents who attended the meeting said they were satisfied with the revised development plan for Trancas Park, they said the meeting made them realize that their definition of the Trancas ridge differed from that of the city.
“The area we saved was the focus point of contention,” Stallings said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “That was our perception.
“The part we were focusing on is the rock outcropping and the cave area and that leading edge of the ridge adjacent to the dog park,” Stallings continued. “The plan we are discussing now would not affect that ridgeline at all.”
Malibu West resident and meeting attendee Lynn Norton on Tuesday wrote an e-mail commending Barovsky on her “extraordinary effort” to respond to Malibu West’s opposition to the grading, but acknowledged a difference of opinion.
“At that meeting…we also learned that we didn’t all have the same definition of what a ridge is,” Norton wrote. “In plain language, those of us who want to ‘save the ridge’ thought that when you look up at a hill, the place where it meets the sky is the ridge.
“And even with the proposed changes, part of the ridge is still being cut,” she continued. “We are still hoping the city will make a small modification to the park design, which would reduce the grading and save the ridge, without losing the amenities that the city has promised to provide in the park.”
“There is some disagreement as to what constitutes the ridge,” meeting attendee and Malibu West resident Kim Belvin said on Tuesday. “The city’s understanding was somewhat different than ours, it was a sincere misunderstanding. To us, the most important part of the ridge looks like it’s going to be saved, the rocky part along the dog park.”
However, Belvin said, the grading plan for the picnic area and the tot lot remains the same.
“We’d like to see if there’s anything we can do about that,” she said. “The city has gone a long way toward resolving our issues and we’re hoping they would be willing to go a little further. We are appreciative that the city is willing to talk with us about this.”
The work to save the ridge has settled the ire of most, except for a few.
“Everyone’s happy except the people who don’t want the park at all,” resident and meeting attendee Justine Petretti said Friday in a telephone interview. “I think there’s a larger group of people that were for the park, they just didn’t want the ridge to be taken away. But now that the ridge is still there, they still don’t want the park. We hope they don’t sue.”