New restrictions and requirements may ban certain agricultural and animal uses that already exist in Malibu.
By Sylvie Belmond/Special to The Malibu Times
The certified California Coastal Commission’s Malibu Local Coastal Plan is gaining momentum among those who feel it may affect a unique way of life that has existed in Malibu for many years. From farmers to horse owners, there is the fear that new requirements and restrictions in the Local Coastal Plan (LCP) will completely alter how they can manage their land.
Beyond possible trail closures to comply with newly established water quality standards recently adopted by the California State Water Resources Control Board, equine friends now have to face a myriad of new water mitigation and management plans, as well as building and grading issues that would affect their ability to have horses or other animals that currently exist on their properties. Even though they are not specifically precluded in the plan, the new LCP rules are onerous and draconian and they will eventually eliminate horses in Malibu, said Rod Bergen, past president of Trancas Riders and Ropers.
When minor additions are made to a home, a local stormwater pollution prevention plan, a stormwater management plan, and a water quality mitigation plan-detailing how stormwater and polluted water runoff will be mitigated, and treatment and site design practices are handled-are required. And for agricultural and animal uses, a water quality mitigation plan for agricultural and confined animal facility developments is required.
This could tie into the issue of limiting bacterial presence in runoff water such as E.coli, which is under the new bacterial standards set by the State Water Resources Control Board.
According David Dennis, a Woodland Hills resident who published a Web site about the LCP, “even if the legal language is intricate, the LCP is clearly biased against horses.”
“Horses are allegedly responsible for E.coli bacteria, which has been detected in local streams,” Dennis writes on the site, but “the fact that E.coli is a product of flesh-eating creatures, and horses are vegetarians seems not to bother the coastal folks one whit.”
Bergen from Trancas Riders and Ropers, who is also a riding instructor at Pierce College in Woodland Hills and who owns several horses in Malibu, agreed.
“It’s true you cannot have bacteria from an herbivore, only from a carnivore,” he said.
This issue, as well as others, is why many individuals who own horses in Malibu, or care about them in any way, are concerned and are actively trying to get signatures for a referendum petition, currently circulated by a group of Malibu citizens who want to repeal the LCP.
There are requirements that will make it impossible to have horses, Bergen said.
“Most people cannot afford the numerous archeological and geological surveys necessary before they can put in a pipe corral,” Bergen said. “The LCP also places restrictions on the number of horses a person can have on their property.”
The new LCP restrictions reduced the number of horses a property owner can have on one acre of land from eight to four.
Bergen said he used to support the Coastal Act because he thought it would prevent excessive development and preserve the rural nature of the Santa Monica Mountains and Malibu.
But now the same rural nature is threatened by the LCP, he said, because the LCP is a land grab and eventually all these areas can become state parks.
“So they can come to your house, fine you and eventually foreclose your house, or, if you follow the brush clearance mandates, you will get burnt out,” Bergen said. “Either way, it’s a wash.”
“Horses are only a small part of the problem, but they are important because they are the best common resource we have,” said the equine aficionado.
“Horses benefit the community in many ways,” Bergen continued, as he highlighted that therapeutic horseback riding classes are offered in Malibu on a regular basis.
“Trancas Ropers and Riders is the oldest community organization in Malibu,” he said. “We have given a lot of man-hours to help the city.”
But Bergen also noted there appears to be an anti-horse movement around the country because horses may impact development.
“The horse community is going to suffer,” he concluded.
Farmers and ranchers in Los Angeles County’s unincorporated Santa Monica Mountains also fear the restrictions on agriculture uses proposed in the controversial land-use plan because they may be targeted next.
“If the land-use plan for the Santa Monica Mountains mirrors, or is similar to, the plan developed for the City of Malibu and is adopted, it will ultimately mean the end of agriculture in the Santa Monica Mountains,” said Brian Bourdreau, owner of Malibu Valley Farms in the Santa Monica Mountains, in a newsletter published by the California Farm Bureau Association.