In March 1999, the Crummer Trust filed a Tentative Tract Map with the City of Malibu seeking approval of eight custom home lots on 24.9 acres. The RR-2 zoning assigned to the Crummer property in the General Plan permitted 12 dwellings. The application I filed as agent for the Crummer Trust was in compliance with the General Plan and municipal ordinances.
In October 1999, Roy Crummer was asked by a City Council member if he would consider making a charitable gift of land to the municipality sufficient in size to accommodate the sports fields and parking the city was going to lose at the Malibu Bluffs State Park as a result of the city’s ground lease expiring in April 2002. If the Crummer family would do this, the city would enter into a Development Agreement with the Crummer Trust awarding it vested entitlements. The councilmember felt certain a majority of the council would uphold this proposal. A public opinion poll of registered Malibu voters in 1998 indicated by a margin of 51 percent to 39 percent that local citizens would support the city entering into a development agreement with property owners of undeveloped property whenever public benefits like land for sports fields could be acquired at no cost.
In response to this request, the Crummer Trust submitted a revised Tentative Tract Map to the city in December 1999 showing where a Little League baseball diamond, a Pony League baseball field, and a soccer field for the children of Malibu could be located without harming the market value of Crummer’s property, provided the city agreed to certain restrictions. Did the city have to agree to award Crummer more than eight houses to get the land gift? No. Crummer asked for no more than what the Interim Zoning Ordinance permitted on eight three-acre minimum-sized lots. That is what Crummer was entitled to if no gift of land had been made. Crummer neither sought nor was offered any exceptions or variances from existing general regulations. The city was giving nothing away.
Did the city propose to back off on requiring Crummer to pay for essential environmental impact report studies? No. Crummer was required to do costly geology, seismic, soils, water, waste management, slope stability, hydrology, drainage, traffic and plant, and animal habitat studies.
Isn’t the Crummer site impacted by three active earthquake faults? How can the city permit houses to be built on seismically endangered land? To address that matter, the city geologist specified the depth and the breadth of the geologic studies that Crummer would have to undertake. Three sizable trenches were dug across the Crummer property to allow licensed geologists, including the city and state geologist, to enter the trenches and examine any observable fractures in the soil. Two were found. But the ruptures were embedded in soils that were more than 30,000 years old. It was clear to all that the faults were inactive. They represented no risk to development.
Won’t the irrigation of city sports fields and the eight Crummer lots contribute to undermining the earth and the movement of Malibu Road and the houses along it toward the sea? Geology studies on the Crummer site reveal bedrock slopes toward Pacific Coast Highway and not toward the sea. Furthermore, the city engineer is requiring Crummer to develop a drainage system that will collect and filter water to conduct it harmlessly from the site, protecting surrounding properties. Wastewater will be collected and piped to an on-site package sewer plant where it will be treated and re-used to irrigate the city sports fields as well as the eight residential lots. There is no environmental problem with the site that cannot be mitigated to the city’s satisfaction.
Why does the Ad Hoc Committee of the City Council believe the community will support a development agreement with the Crummer Trust? The public is receiving a gift of 7.2 acres at no cost for replacing sports fields at Malibu Bluffs State Park, and Crummer is getting no more than the right to develop eight lots on a site that qualified for 12 lots under the RR-2 zone. The city is requiring Crummer to comply with all existing general regulations. If the city rejects Crummer’s generous donation of park land, the city would have to look elsewhere for comparable acreage which it has been unable to find. The Crummer Trust would continue processing its subdivision plan for approval without any direct land benefits accruing to the city. There is no sensible reason for this mutual arrangement to be opposed.
Thomas Ashley Agent for the Crummer Trust