The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy’s ambitious proposal to develop property in Malibu is declared invalid, after court finds coastal act violations. The ruling applies to the former Streisand estate.
A Superior Court judge issued a ruling today voiding the California Coastal Commission’s approval of a controversial amendment to Malibu’s Local Coastal Program that would have allowed overnight campsites in Malibu.
The Commission had OK’d the amendment despite the strenuous objections of the City of Malibu and many of its residents. The ill-fated proposal was developed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy as part of a long and contentious campaign to secure permits for its executive offices and an entertainment center on the former Streisand Estate in Malibu, plus overnight campsites and hiking trails on various Malibu properties owned by the conservancy.
The court ruling by Superior Court Judge John Torribio resulted from lawsuits brought by the City of Malibu and a group of Malibu residents challenging the Coastal Commission’s June 2009 decision. The two lawsuits claimed that the commission’s approval of the conservancy’s ambitious proposal violated numerous provisions of the State Coastal Act and Environmental Quality Act.
In particular, the lawsuits asserted that the Coastal Commission acted outside of its authority by approving a set of land use policies over the objections of the City of Malibu. The city and its residents argued that the Coastal Act should be interpreted in a way that preserves local land use authority, and that the Coastal Commission does not have the power to compel a local city to accept land use policies to which it objects, except under very narrow circumstances. The court agreed that the Coastal Commission had overstepped its lawful jurisdiction in approving the Conservancy’s ambitious plans.
The ruling also found that the Coastal Commission violated the state’s Environmental Quality Act by failing to give the public the required 30 days to review the Commission staff’s environmental analysis of the proposal before the June 2009 vote. The Commission asserted that its rules allowed the Commission to give the public just seven days to read the massive volume of documents presented to the Commission. The court rejected the Commission’s arguments.
The Ramirez Canyon Preservation Fund led the lawsuit by the Malibu residents. The ruling elated its president, Rick Mullen.
“For many years, we have been urging the Conservancy to comply with the law. When our pleas fell on deaf ears, we were forced to ask the courts for help. It’s good to know that our justice system works.”
According to Conservancy records, the agency has spent over $3.3 million trying to secure approval of its Malibu plan.
The Streisand property is 22 acres in a remote end of Ramirez Canyon. It was donated by the entertainer to the conservancy in 1993 for use as an “environmental think tank,” but was converted to executive offices for the conservancy’s staff. In May, Gov. Brown proposed that the Streisand estate be sold because it is “underutilized” and expensive to maintain.
Mullen expressed the opinion that today’s ruling would bolster the governor’s argument that the property should be sold.
“It’s clear that the Streisand property is not suitable for the kinds of intensive uses that the Conservancy has proposed. The money spent on that property could be used to provide services to a broader public. It should be sold.”