As the Trancas Country Market heads to planning, residents conduct a letter writing campaign opposing the project.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
As the Planning Commission prepares to meet Tuesday, where it will consider approval of a coastal development permit to allow the expansion and renovation of Trancas Country Market, a battle is brewing among Malibu residents who have become increasingly vociferous in opposing or supporting the proposed development.
The commission’s decision on Tuesday will serve as a recommendation to city council members who will cast the final vote on the matter at an undetermined date.
The expansion and renovation plan for Trancas Country Market, located at the intersection of Trancas Canyon Road and Pacific Coast Highway, calls for the addition of five buildings (totaling 37,372 square feet) to the 14-acre shopping center; a new public parking lot north of HOWS supermarket; a new employee parking lot north of Chevron on the west side of Trancas Canyon Road; and a new 11,000-square-foot shopping center to be built on the former Riders and Ropers 6.44-acre property located east of Trancas Creek. The plan also proposes to enhance Trancas Creek by planting native vegetation along its banks.
Opponents to the project, who have been sending multiple letters to the editor the past few weeks regarding the issue, say the development’s plans will negatively impact Trancas Creek and that an environmental impact review has not been conducted.
Stefanie Edmondson, the city’s principal planner, said last week that an “extensive environmental analysis” has been conducted for potential impacts of the proposed development. She explained that an EIR is written only if environmental impacts from an initial study cannot be mitigated. As of yet, the proposed development’s mitigated negative declaration states that no such impacts exist.
However, resident Mark Wetton, a board member of the Malibu West Homeowners Association, said Friday in a telephone interview the study fails to address the egress and ingress of new traffic created by the development, and the traffic’s impact on surrounding intersections.
“The document claims that all of the issues are not a significant impact,” Wetton said. “If they put in the report it’s not a significant impact, they don’t need to mitigate it. The reason they don’t want to give an EIR is they have to give options for a smaller project.”
Trancas Country Market owner and Malibu resident Dan Bercu said he believes they’ve done everything that is necessary and required regarding the environmental impacts.
“We spent three years doing an initial study like the city told us to do,” Bercu said. “It’s 564 pages long. If that’s not an EIR, I don’t know what is.
“All the projects that have done an EIR-La Paz, Trancas [Canyon] Park-are all getting sued anyway because nobody believes in its validity,” Bercu continued. “In my mind, it’s a political, not an environmental, request.”
As for Trancas Creek, a city staff report states that development on the existing shopping center is constrained because it is bisected by the creek, an environmentally sensitive habitat area, which, according to the city’s zoning ordinance, requires a 100-foot buffer. However, the report states that strict application of the ordinance on that property “deprives it of privileges enjoyed by other properties in the vicinity and under the identical zoning classification.”
“It’s likely that any development proposed [at that property] would require a variance due to the property being bisected by stream and the required steam setbacks,” Edmondson said.
Opponents want to keep rural feel
Those opposed to the mall development also say approval of the project will open the floodgates to additional development in what is considered to be the more rural end of Malibu.
“I think the majority of us who moved to the west end of Malibu moved there for the rural nature,” Wetton said. “We’re OK about driving over the hill occasionally to get something that’s not in Malibu.”
Advocates, however, say they are fed up with the distances they must travel to obtain goods that used to be sold at stores within the city, such as Malibu Lumber, which have now been replaced with high-end retail stores. “I am tired of driving to the Valley to shop for my family or even get a nice dinner,” resident Lee Reams wrote on The Malibu Times Web page last week. “I live on Point Dume and would much rather drive up the coast.
“The design seems very mild compared to what they could do on that site,” Reams added. “What are you so afraid of? That we actually have a nice community center designed and owned by locals. This no growth thing is getting carried away. No parks-now no local stores.”
Bercu said one of his priorities is helping to “keep Malibu businesses in Malibu,” in reference to the many local stores in other shopping centers that have been forced to relocate or shut down during the past year due to increased rent, some of which may find new homes at the country market.
Such businesses include two restaurants, a surf shop, bike shop, flower shop, yoga studio, women’s and men’s clothing store, shoe store, shoe repair, eyewear shop, toy store, bookstore, candy store, drugstore, vitamin store, home shopping store, yogurt shop, art gallery and a bank.
But some residents say it’s just a sales pitch to help get the project approved.
“It’s all just a bunch of hoo-hah so everyone feels good about what they’re doing,” Wetton said. “When you cut through all the B.S., it’s really just a developer who wants to build as may square feet as he can. The rest is just baloney.
“The majority of people we’ve talked to agree that it would be nice if the center was cleaned up and improved, but 21 stores is a crazy number,” Wetton said. “We think the development is too big for the area. It’s going to attract visitors and it’s going to become a zoo. And why do we need more zoos? We’ve got Cross Creek, that’s enough of a zoo isn’t it?”