The new Santa Monica National Recreation area superintendent faces a delicate balancing act between management of parkland and the rights of private property owners.
By P.G. O’Malley/Special to The Malibu Times
Ask Woody Smeck what made him decide to take the job as superintendent of the Santa Monica National Recreation Area, and he’ll say, the strong sense of stewardship from communities around the park.
“Malibu has been a great community to work with,” Smeck says, “in terms of its understanding that it is a gateway to the mountains.”
But City Manager Katie Lichtig says Malibu’s interests and those of the nation’s largest urban park don’t always converge.
“Their job is to attract visitors,” Lichtig says. “Mine is to protect the interests of city residents.”
Lichtig points out that Malibu already receives 10 million to 12 million of the 30 million visitors who annually visit the park.
Smeck, who joined the park service as a landscape architect in 1991, has served his entire career in the Santa Monica Mountains, putting in a stint as chief of land use planning, then maintenance and facility management, then two years as deputy superintendent, then 18 months as acting superintendent. A Bakersfield native, he says he became sensitized to the environment from spending time in the Sierras.
In his work for the recreation area, Smeck has often played the role of facilitator; one of the projects he’s the most proud of is the compromise that opened Zuma Canyon whole protecting the privacy of canyon residents. The trailhead was moved to Kanan Dume Road, and the park service agreed not to post signs directing visitors along narrow residential streets.
Smeck says he hopes the same kind of compromise can be worked out with Malibu’s Bluffs Park. “The park service has to recognize that Malibu has a huge shortage of municipal ball fields for the children in the city,” he says. “And although our new General Plan envisions a visitor center on the site, I think the two can be coexist.”
“We’re doing our best to work cooperatively with all the agencies that have properties within the city limits,” Lichtig says.
The state parks department, which owns the Bluffs property and recently asked the city for a departure timeline from the site, is currently working on a compromise to relocate the ball fields.
Regarding private land in the recreation area, Smeck says he neither supports nor opposes development but points out potential adverse impacts based on CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) documentation.
But the park service itself has come under fire for construction of visitor-serving facilities in Solstice Canyon, which some Malibu residents have charged were built under less stringent restrictions than the 28-unit Forge Lodge planned for the mouth of the canyon, where Solstice Creek empties into the ocean.
According to Smeck, the park service removed an existing visitor information center and its failing septic system, installed a shade shelter for open air programs, a gathering ring for ranger programs and two vault toilets that don’t require leach fields or septic tanks. Despite recent criticism of heavy equipment in the creek, Smeck says he’s satisfied the improvements were an “environmental gain.”
Smeck reminds Malibu residents that the park service has no jurisdiction over the Forge Lodge site and commented on the development as “another neighbor in the mountains. We simply pointed out it’s a high intensity use close to some very sensitive resources.”
But Malibu City Biologist Dave Crawford says the area is actually a “disturbed sensitive resource area,” not an ESHA (environmentally sensitive habitat area), circumstances which prompted the city to approve a 50-foot setback from the stream (as opposed to the usual 100 feet), while requiring mitigation measures to improve the natural conditions of the property. The Sierra Club is currently appealing the approval of the setback and other issues concerning the lodge.
Aside from improving the recreation area’s visitor serving facilities, next on Smeck’s agenda is a new fire management plan.
“We can’t stop fire from occurring,” Smeck says, “so the challenge becomes how to control where it goes and how to build protection around areas at risk.”
The park service envisions the traditional program of controlled burns will be replaced with prescription burning, which will target selective areas that have a history of fire, where terrain and wind patterns increase fire potential and where there are homes and other structures. Also under investigation is mechanical removal of vegetation using hand crews and the county fire department’s vegetation crusher.
Currently, the park service is held to the same standards as homeowners-brush clearance must be 200 feet from existing structures. Smeck says he hopes more property owners will take the fire department on its recommendation to allow 200 feet between any new structure and the boundary between public and private property, which will mean less clearing for parkland. “The goal is to remove excess vegetation but to leave enough behind to hold the soil.
“This is Mediterranean chaparral and is rare and worth protecting,” Smeck says, “but for people to enjoy. This is the recreation area’s critical mission, and we take it seriously.”