The new revised LCPversion looks even worse
The Coastal Commission staff springs its September surpriseKaren and I came back from Kauai in a pretty near vegetative state after spending a glorious week doing absolutely nothing. No phone calls, no appointments, no Malibu, no one we knew. Just total immersion in nothingness, except for one brief moment of insanity when we did a five-hour kayak trip in a two-person craft up to within a mile of a glorious waterfall. Then, we did a short trek up the side of a rain-soaked, muddy, slippery mountainside path to the waterfall and then back down to our boats, and a quick 2-mile paddle back. It was an awe-inspiring journey and once the blisters heal and sunburned shins are no longer bright red, I’m sure I’ll look back on it fondly. However, it has caused me to rethink my plans about becoming an adventure travel writer.
On the way out of Kauai we stopped at the Kauai County Fair and it was filled with exotic plants and somewhat less exotic politicians all running for council, which is something like our board of supervisors, so we stopped to chat. Four out of seven seats were open, without an incumbent running, so there was a stampede. And just guess what the main issue was-the big ‘D’ word of course. Depending on whom we spoke to, there was too much development, too little development, or development all in the wrong places. We could have just set up shop and just recycled my old columns.
Instead, home we came to Malibu and back to work we went. I immediately started calling around to find out what had happened in a brief week and, apparently, it was a great deal. The California Coastal Commission staff had released their final draft of the Malibu Local Coastal Program and, to almost no one’s surprise, they had done their damnedest to turn a potential disaster into an actual disaster. If it wasn’t so horrendous, one would almost have to admire the insidious way the coastal staff takes directives from the commission. Then, while their left hand obstensively takes out things the commission wants removed, they simultaneously manage to change and amend other language that essentially negates what the commission has told them to do, and just puts back the old rules, but in different language. Let me give you just a few examples about which I’ve been told, but with a caveat. I generally try to read and analyze all of these documents on my own and not take anyone else’s word for it, but that’s been difficult. The proposed LCP is an enormous document and larger then some California state codes. The Coastal Commission staff report itself was 168 pages. The implementation portion of the LCP was 272 pages in Part 1, and 62 pages in Part 2. The Land Use Plan portion of the LCP is 135 pages, and there are several other parts also. Reading it is a daunting task. Understanding it is an even more daunting task. That is not an accident. There is an apparent staff strategy in this. It’s this detailed so the city that has to enforce it has very little wiggle room. They don’t want the city to use its discretion; just its resources to enforce the Coastal Commission staff’s will. The second part of the staff plan is to make the document so detailed and complex that the coastal commissioners, who are part-time and paid very little, would have to spend unlimited hours on the proposed plan as much as the full-time staff people assigned to it do, to maintain control of the process. In other words, they’re drowning the commissioners in paper.
So how did the staff do this end-runaround the commissioners? Or, to be more specific, around some of the commissioners they don’t agree with? Let me give you a few examples:
- Initially they wanted control over any property visible from a scenic highway, but the commission said no. So they removed it, but not all of it. They managed to leave in enough wording about coastal water and blue-line streams, which effectively extends control over most any property that’s visible from water or a road.
- They’ve slipped in wording to give the staff continued control over a bunch of things the commission wanted out, and have even added a few new things. For example:
*They’ve decided to add a requirement that you do a raptor study before doing certain construction. I had visions of those raptors in Jurassic Park, but it seems to mean eagles and owls and lord knows what else.
*They’ve increased the ESHA buffer limitation areas from 100 feet to 200 feet. If the Fire Department was uneasy with rules about limiting brush clearance before, it’s a bet that many more homes are now going to be that much less defensible. Frankly, if the commissioners seriously ignore the L.A. County Fire Department’s reservations, they are out playing with fire (pardon the pun). I’m an old litigator and I think there is a possibility of some personal liability on their parts, and some argue if someone or some entity knowingly proceeds to create a dangerous condition of public or private land, the Coastal Commission could be liable. At the very least, if I were a coastal commissioner, I’d want a letter from the attorney general stating there is no personal liability attached, and that the state is prepared to defend them if sued. I can almost absolutely guarantee that, after the next major fire, they will individually be named as defendants.
*They’ve kept their control over Bluffs Park and still covet the fields.
*They’ve gone back to the issue of the Environmental Review Board (ERB), which is a city organization, and are again trying to assign it a role and dictate whom the city should appoint and how they are to do their job.
*They played games on Point Dume with how they drew certain lines, the effect of which is that many of the city’s actions on Point Dume can come up for appeal before the Coastal Commission.
*They’ve drawn the appeal map lines in such a way, and so broadly, that almost anything can be appealed to the Coastal Commission. So, although one purpose the LCP was for Malibu was to take control of its own permitting, the reality is when it’s over, we’ll have less control than we had before. And every enviro-extremist group will be able to appeal whatever they want, whenever they want and we will all have to pay to buy off the opposition.
I’ll be able to give you more detail next week, before the Thursday, Sept. 12 hearing of the Coastal Commission, which is decision day. But it’s imperative that you all plan on being there.