Malibu’s Planning Commission looks to two other cities’ ordinances to come up with one to suit Malibu.
By James Shilander / Special to The Malibu Times
While the Malibu Planning Department is currently drafting a new version of the proposed View Restoration and Preservation Ordinance, which would put a formal process in place for the city to help settle disputes between neighbors, The Malibu Times examined ordinances from two other cities with similar topography and circumstances.
The viewshed ordinance effort stems from a vote in the spring of 2008, in which voters directed the city to create an ordinance to protect views, as vegetative growth and new buildings were becoming a source of conflict between neighbors. A citizen task force has been working for the last two years to make recommendations for an ordinance. The task force’s recommendations and the city’s proposal do have some sharp differences, however, especially with regard to the limits of the city’s role in enforcement.
The new version of the ordinance will include public feedback from a hearing Nov. 16. At that meeting, more than 30 residents expressed concerns about the proposal, some wanting the city more involved in the process, while others wanted no ordinance at all.
Those wanting the city more involved have cited the example of Rancho Palos Verdes, which has had an ordinance protecting views since 1989. That city’s ordinance gives a greater role to the city, as those looking for relief can seek help from the city Planning Commission for a ruling. However, circumstances in the last few years have changed in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Joel Rojas, the city’s community development director, noted that the city recently contracted with a mediator, who negotiates between neighbors in disputes over views.
“There are basically three steps,” Rojas explained. “First, neighbors can work something out privately, between one another. After that, they can make an application to the city and can go to the mediator.”
If the mediator cannot work something out between the two parties, he said, the Planning Commission would make a ruling, citing how many trees might need to be trimmed or by how much. Such a ruling would be considered binding.
Rojas said that since the city hired the mediator, there has been a marked decline in the number of view cases coming before the commission.
“Most cases are resolved at step one, and about 75 percent of the rest are done at step two,” Rojas said. “We now only have about three or four view cases come before the commission each year.”
Rojas explained that in cases where the city made the decision, the complainant would pay for the initial removal or trimming. Subsequent maintenance is the responsibility of the owner of the trees.
Bill Gerstner, who is in his second term as chair of the Rancho Palos Verdes Planning Commission, said the city’s hiring of the mediator has made the process much better.
“It’s the best thing we ever did,” Gerstner said. “We initially did it as a test, then made it full time.”
Gerstner said that because the mediator typically was able to resolve so many of the cases that weren’t resolved by the parties themselves, those left for the commission were “the worst of the worst,” the most bitter cases.
“Typically those are the cases where the parties don’t just disagree, they’re being disagreeable,” Gerstner said. “Views are obviously subjective in a lot of ways, and trees can be very personal to people. Sometimes the worst cases we have are those who’ve been around for years and years.”
With the Rancho Palos Verdes view ordinance having been in place for more than 20 years, he noted, many of the cases the commission was now seeing represented the last of the older tree growth, or those where there might have been a change of neighbors.
While Rancho Palos Verdes allows for city involvement in its ordinance, Rolling Hills Estates’ view ordinance, which only became formalized last month, takes the city entirely out of the process, and instead encourages neighbors to resolve their disputes themselves.
Planning director David Wahba said the new ordinance allows for the use of mediators and arbitrators, but no final decision from the city.
“The intention was to keep the city out of it as much as possible,” Wahba said.
The city has had guidelines dealing with how it handles view conflicts for the last 25 years, Wahba said. The decision to formalize those guidelines came after community demand during the last few years.
Wahba described the Rolling Hills Estates process as “really a tool the resident has.”
“The city, for all intents and purposes, isn’t involved. It doesn’t go before the planning commission or the city council. It leaves it up to the residents and, ultimately, the courts.”
Wahba said the method the city chose was recommended by the city attorney, and explicitly said the city wanted to stay away from the Rancho Palos Verdes model.
As currently drafted, the proposed Malibu ordinance would include mediation, similar to both cities. The city’s current proposal adheres more to the Rolling Hills Estates model after that point. Members of a view preservation task force who worked on the issue during the last two years had lobbied for a model based on Rancho Palos Verdes.
A Malibu Planning Department spokesperson said the city would be presenting the new draft of the view ordinance at a future public hearing. The ordinance still must receive approval by the Planning Commission and then the City Council before going into effect.