Intense debated is expected Monday when the Malibu City council tackles for a second time the contentious issue of view restoration, as well as a church versus state conundrum.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
The Malibu City Council is set to make a crucial decision Monday when it revisits the thorny issue of a citywide view restoration ordinance: whether to give property owners the right to restore pre-existing views or simply preserve current views going forward. The council failed to reach an agreement in its first attempt to craft the ordinance amid fears that restoring old views would lead to lawsuits. The council will also vote whether to place the phrase “In God We Trust” at Malibu City Hall.
Sixty percent of Malibu voters in 2008 voted in favor of an ordinance requiring the removal or trimming of landscaping “in order to restore and maintain primary views from private homes.” City staff then drew up an amendment to the city’s municipal code establishing a private right of action for property owners to restore views that existed when the city was incorporated in 1991, but that have since been significantly obstructed by tree and other foliage growth on neighboring properties.
But when the item reached the council table in September, Mayor Pro Tem Lou La Monte said all language about restoring views should be eliminated. He advocated solely enforcing views that currently exist, or view preservation. Retroactively restoring views would lead to a number of lawsuits that could bankrupt the city, La Monte said. Councilmembers Pamela Conley Ulich and John Sibert agreed.
“Depending on how far back we put this [retroactive view claim], that’s how big our legal fees are going to be, because people are going to sue us,” La Monte said. “If you started this ordinance today, you wouldn’t have any legal fees.”
Mayor Laura Rosenthal and Councilmember Jefferson Wagner countered that the voters had specifically asked for view restoration, and view restoration is what they should get. Rosenthal said she was among those who had lost a view due to neighboring foliage growth.
“If your view is gone, then that doesn’t help you to have the ordinance start today,” Rosenthal said. “I don’t think we should not do the right thing because we might be sued. It’s Malibu. We will be sued.”
The ordinance would have allowed residential and commercial property owners to reclaim one 180-degree “primary view” that has been obstructed by foliage growth within a 1,000-foot radius of their property. To qualify under the ordinance, the view must have been unobstructed when the property was purchased or at the time of the city’s incorporation in 1991, whichever is later. The staff report defines a primary view as “visually impressive scenes of the Pacific Ocean, offshore islands, the Santa Monica Mountains, canyons, valleys, or ravines.”
One mitigating solution the council will consider adding to the ordinance is a maximum height for trees that block primary views of neighbors. Some potential maximum heights discussed at the last meeting were 16 or 18 feet. The rule would not apply to trees that do not block neighbors’ primary views.
The council has also voiced tentative support that the Planning Commission, and not a newly created view restoration commission, should make view determinations about what views individual property owners were entitled to. Plans for the proposed view restoration commission were scrapped.
The council has also requested the ordinance be revenue-neutral to the city. A previous plan in the original ordinance to offer city-funded mediation sessions to property owners in view disputes met resistance from the council at the last meeting. The mediation sessions had been potentially projected to cost the city more than $1 million, and Sibert and others expressed doubts about how effective the sessions would be.
Another item on Monday’s agenda is sure to attract interest. La Monte and Ulich have requested a council vote on whether to display the phrase “In God We Trust” at Malibu City Hall. The phrase was established as the national motto of the United States in 1957, and reaffirmed in 2002 by the U.S. Congress, according to the staff report.
An organization called In God We Trust – America, Inc. that advocates the display of the national motto in city halls and county headquarters across the country has successfully lobbied 264 cities or counties to do so, according to the staff report.