The City Council passed an ordinance Monday to allow for the issuance of coastal development permits while it continues its litigation against the California Coastal Commission. The council must approve the ordinance on a second reading at its Oct. 25 meeting, and then the law would go into effect 30 days after that. However, other circumstances could occur before the ordinance would go in effect to change the situation.
The city has asked the Coastal Commission if it can issue coastal permits based on the Coastal Commission-drafted Local Coastal Program without prejudicing its case. The request is not currently on the Coastal Commission’s agenda for its meeting scheduled for Oct. 13-15, and City Attorney Christi Hogin said it is unlikely the item will be heard. The commission meets again in mid-November, at which time it would likely address the request. If the Coastal Commission were to agree to the request by the city, then it would likely put the city in a clear position to be issuing the permits.
Another factor is how the state Supreme Court will respond to the city’s petition to hear its case. If the court were to say no, which could occur anytime between now and 100 days from Oct. 1, then the city would have to accept the Coastal Commission drafted-LCP, and the whole situation would be moot. Hogin has said the chance of the Supreme Court agreeing to take up the case is slim, because the court does not hear many cases compared with how many it is offered. Some people have suggested the situation isn’t that hopeless because the Supreme Court is already scheduled to hear another Coastal Commission-related case with Marine Forest v. California Coastal Commission.
The passage of the ordinance comes after two years of the city attorney saying the city cannot issue coastal permits because it could jeopardize the case. In her staff report about this issue, she admitted that the city was in “uncharted waters.”
No coastal permits have been issued in Malibu since the city’s conflict with the Coastal Commission went to litigation in the fall of 2002. After the Coastal Commission drafted and approved an LCP for Malibu, local residents gathered more than 2,400 signatures to put what they consider to be an extremist document up for a vote. The Coastal Commission said that vote would not be legal. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge and the Court of Appeal have since sided with the state agency.
Also at the council meeting, the council voted 4-1 to reject an appeal by architect Ron Goldman of the Planning Commission’s May 17 approval for the construction of a 9,707-square-foot office building that would be located next to his office building on Pacific Coast Highway near the Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue. Goldman alleged there were several miscalculations and errors in the staff report on which the Planning Commission based its vote.
In the staff report presented to the City Council, City Planner Stacey Rice admitted that an error had been made in allowing a portion of the project to be constructed on a 1:1 slope. Rice said the error could be corrected by redesigning the project in order to eliminate the 1:1 slope construction. However, Mayor Pro Tem Andy Stern said he could not vote for the project because of that error. He said it was not good enough that the project’s architect, Mike Barsocchini, would be instructed to redesign the project.
Goldman also complained about design problems he had with the project, including what he said were overextended overhangs that gave the project an appearance of a larger mass. Barsocchini said Goldman’s appeal was an attack on his architecture.
Additionally, Ruth White was introduced as the first president of the Malibu Arts Foundation. The new organization is the brainchild of City Councilmember Pamela Conely Ulich. During her campaign, she said one of her goals was to create an arts commission. The Arts Foundation meets again in November.
Lastly, the council did not as planned discuss the formation of a committee to determine whether Malibu could host a marathon. The council has a rule not to hear any items on the agenda after 11 p.m. unless it is in the middle of dealing with one. However, when it became 11 p.m., Glen Steele of Malibu Marathon LLC was nowhere to be seen. He did appear in council chambers earlier in the evening, but disappeared soon after. Conley Ulich, who had proposed the creation of the committee, commented to another person after the meeting that she wondered where he was.