Could there be another tussle over the future of the much-embattled Bluffs Park in Malibu?
Joe Edmiston of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy appears to be flexing that agency’s muscle in an effort to push the city into developing sports facilities at Malibu Bluffs Park, or risk reversing the swap that ceded Bluffs to the city in the first place, returning Charmlee Wilderness Park to the City of Malibu. The park swap was initiated in 2014, though a five-year grace period was instated to ease the transition. Either side can decide to break the lease.
A letter sent last week from Edmiston to Malibu Mayor Skylar Peak indicates that, at a meeting at King Gillette Ranch on June 22, the conservancy will be considering reversing the swap.
Just weeks after a new Malibu City Council voted down plans for a previously proposed sports complex at Bluffs, Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, is asking to meet with city leaders who swapped the property for Charmlee Park in 2014. The five-year swap will be over in two years and, if the property is not developed, the SMMC may want it back. Under the agreement, the conservancy has the right to end the swap in 2019.
“It is time to acknowledge that Charmlee Wilderness Park should be returned to Malibu’s condign aegis, with your much more ample budget, and the Malibu Bluffs Park returned to the jurisdiction of the State of California from whence it came so that it can be applied to the purposes for which it was acquired, i.e., public accommodation and recreation,” a portion of Edmiston’s letter, sent June 12, read. The letter was copied to other conservancy members, California Coastal Commission employees and city officials.
City Attorney Christi Hogin replied that same morning, indicating Edmiston was jumping the gun.
“The city has not decided to move forward with preparation of an environmental impact report of an admittedly aggressive project that would have maximized the active uses on Bluffs,” Hogin wrote. “Instead the city decided to continue to evaluate options for spreading out the active recreational uses on various locations in the city. Once more specific options are identified, including Bluffs, the city will conduct whatever CEQA analysis is required.”
Though Edmiston famously advocated developing campsites at Malibu Bluffs Park — as far back as the October 2009 California Coastal Commission meeting where the commission approved camping as an allowed use at the park — he would not confirm whether camping would come up if the swap were to be reversed.
“You know, I don’t know what we’d be proposing and it’s way too premature to even discuss it since the city still has the Bluffs Park,” Edmiston told The Malibu Times during a phone interview.
When asked about the council’s decision not to build, Edmiston replied, “If they’re not going to do anything with the property, then there’s no reason for them to have the property.
“I’m now told they didn’t give up on doing something there, it’s just not the ambitious program that was proposed by the previous council,” he continued. “So I look forward to meeting with the mayor and appropriate council members all pursuant to the Brown Act and getting a better understanding of where they do want to go.”