Legal representatives for the California Coastal Commission and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy express confidence the recent court ruling voiding the conservancy’s plan that would allow overnight camping on its Malibu properties would be reversed upon appeal.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
After a judge voided the California Coastal Commission’s approval of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy’s parks enhancement plan for Malibu, both agencies have announced they will appeal the ruling.
Superior Court Judge John A. Torribio wrote in a July 7 decision that the commission “exceeded its authority” in 2009 when it altered Malibu’s Local Coastal Program without the city’s consent to allow the conservancy to include overnight camping, hiking trails and other amenities in several of Malibu’s parks and canyons. Residents and the city furiously opposed the overnight portion of the parks plan, saying that even though campfires would be prohibited, they feared the use of propane stoves and ignorance of the law would make Malibu susceptible to destructive wild fires. In addition to overnight camping, events such as weddings would have been allowed at the Ramirez park property, which was donated to the conservancy by Barbra Streisand and houses the conservancy’s offices, another issue that riled residents who said the road to the park could not handle extra traffic from such events.
Torribio also found the commission at fault for not giving the mandatory 30-days notice regarding the environmental impact of the changes as required under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
The ruling was a major victory for the City of Malibu and homeowners in Ramirez Canyon, who filed the lawsuit on which Torribio ruled. However, legal counsels from the conservancy and the commission have both said they are appealing the ruling and feel confident of their chances.
Laurie Collins, the conservancy’s legal representative, told The Malibu Times the conservancy filed its appeal the day after the ruling.
Chris Pederson, legal counsel for the Coastal Commission in the lawsuit, said the conservancy’s plan constituted a public works project, making the commission’s approval of it lawful.
“We’re confident of succeeding,” Pederson said.
Conservancy officials have characterized the lawsuit as a fight between public access and private NIMBYism.
“We are not going to let the lawyers keep the people out of parkland that belongs to all of the people of California,” said Conservancy Chair Antonio Gonzalez in a press release after the decision. “This is a social justice issue, an issue of public access.”
“Ultimately, I would like to see the conservancy work with the city and the Coastal Commission to come up with a set of regulations that will help advance the conservancy’s and the city’s shared public access goals,” Malibu City Attorney Christi Hogin said. “But at the moment it looks like the conservancy’s in ‘fightin” mode.”
Pederson estimated it would be several months “at the earliest” before the three-judge appeals court would hear the appeal. He said the commission expects a ruling on the CEQA noticing issue soon.
Another lawsuit, Ross v. California Coastal Commission, which challenges the commission’s approval of an LCP amendment in the City of Malibu several years ago, finished oral arguments in late June. Pederson expressed confidence that court would rule that CEQA’s 30-day noticing requirement did not apply to the commission, since the overnight camping plan was a staff report and not an environmental impact report.
The camping issue dates back to 2006, when the conservancy first pitched what it called the Malibu Parks Public Access Enhancement Plan Overlay, which includes overnight camping at three Malibu canyon parks owned by the conservancy, as well as permission to have a certain number of events at the Streisand property in Ramirez Canyon. After running into resistance to the plan from area residents (and because the camping regulations were not allowed in the city’s LCP), the conservancy agreed to negotiate with the city to amend its LCP to allow camping.
However, when the city backtracked from the camping agreement following the Malibu Canyon and Corral Canyon wildfires in 2007, the conservancy bypassed the city and proposed its own plan to the Coastal Commission. The conservancy did this by using an obscure rule called an “LCP amendment override procedure” intended for use when a public works project or energy facility development is being requested that meets “public needs of an area greater than” the local jurisdiction, and if the request was not anticipated by the applicant making it.
The Coastal Commission in 2009 approved the SMMC plan, to which camping at Bluffs Park was added at the hearing after public comment, and denied a competing LCP amendment proposed by the City of Malibu. The city then sued, alleging the Coastal Commission had overstepped its bounds and usurped a local city’s power, and that the commission did not provide sufficient public notice of its plans under the California Environmental Quality Act.