The project includes a 20,850 square-foot office park and a 16,000 square-foot Longs Drug Store. Also, a skate park and small corner park will be built.
By Jonathan Friedman/Staff Writer
The Environmental Review Board got its first look at the Malibu Sycamore Grove Office Park and Civic Center Way Retail Park project at an April 28 meeting.
Board member Suzanne Goode said the project did not provide enough open space and that the offer of a public benefit of a skate park was not sufficient. Other members said more should be done to allow for the capture of storm water on the site. The project’s designer, Tom Torres, said he was open to those suggestions. Also, community activist John Mazza said Torres was improperly using a building to meet the open space requirement in the zoning code. Torres said that was not true.
More commonly known as the Schultz project, it is actually two developments to be built on the northwest corner of Civic Center Way and Cross Creek Road, across from Taverna Tony’s restaurant. One project is the construction of a 20,850-square-foot office park, consisting of six, one-story structures. The other is the development of a 16,000-square-foot Longs Drug Store, which would be built where the Papa Jacks Skate Park is located. The two complexes would share a driveway and include a pedestrian bridge that would cross a landscaped detention basin.
The detention basin, which is proposed to be at least 22,600 cubic feet and five feet deep, is necessary because the project is located in a floodplain. The basin would consist of dirt and vegetation, with a small amount of concrete at the bottom. Water would enter the basin, with some of it infiltrating into the dirt and vegetation portions of the structure. Once the basin was full, the water would enter a 12-inch pipe that would release it into a county storm drain system. Also, the project would be connected to a nearby storm water treatment facility that was recently approved for construction.
The drugstore project is part of a development agreement enabling the applicant to obtain an increase in square footage. As a public benefit in the agreement, a small corner park and a new skate park would be built on the property. The current skate park would be demolished.
Goode said she did not believe enough people used the current skate park, making a new one an insufficient public benefit. There was also concern raised by some board members about the new park being only 7,723 square feet, as opposed to the current 10,000 square feet. But board member Lester Tobias, whose son is a skater, said it would not make a difference. In a Tuesday telephone interview, Parks and Recreation Director Paul Adams said attendance at the skate park has been down the past six to eight months because some equipment had been removed for service, but he said he is pleased with attendance overall. There were 200 visits to the park last month.
“It gets rather good use,” Adams said. “It doesn’t get the use of, say, a soccer field, but we’re not being offered enough space to put in a soccer field.”
An argument was raised that the office complex did not meet the zoning code requirement for a commercial project to devote 25 percent of a lot to open space. Torres included roof terraces as part of the open space. Mazza said that was not legal, citing the entry in the zoning code, “Open space areas may include courtyards, patios, natural open space and additional landscaping. Parking lots, buildings, exterior hallways and stairways shall not qualify as open space.”
But in a Tuesday telephone interview, Torres said the terraces qualify as open space because they are courtyards, although on a second floor.
“It doesn’t say the courtyards can be on a second floor, but it doesn’t say they can’t,” Torres said.
A Draft Environmental Impact Report has not been released for the project. It is expected to come out sometime in the next two months. In that time, alterations might be made to the project proposal.
After the document is released, the DEIR will be circulated for public review for 45 days. Then the project can go before the Planning Commission. It must be approved by the City Council since it includes a development agreement.