Ramirez Canyon residents were happy to learn that the City of Malibu won its lawsuit against the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Simply put, the verdict of the court says that the Conservancy must follow local laws. Malibu zoning does not permit commercial enterprises in residential neighborhoods. But the Conservancy has always insisted that, as a state agency, it is the state and is immune to local laws. So, for the past eight years, it has been operating commercial events at the former Streisand Center (now strategically renamed Ramirez Canyon Park.) Its activities have brought noise, traffic dangers and pollution to this beautiful canyon.
Over the years, we fought hard. We gathered funds and went to court. We lost. Without the funds to appeal, we turned to the Coastal Commission to get environmental limits to the commercial events and to have non-permitted development at the site corrected. At first, Coastal was responsive and imposed conditions for the Conservancy to complete in order to operate. Later, Coastal changed its position. It no only supported unlimited events, but it somehow followed by giving the Conservancy permits (or permission?) to operate before the conditions were completed. Frankly, I don’t have all the facts.
Meanwhile, the Malibu City Council continued to agree that the Conservancy should follow our local laws. Finally, after the last Coastal meeting, the city filed the lawsuit it has just won. It has been a difficult battle, and we owe many thanks for the efforts of three city councils along the way. In the beginning, as a novice without any notion of how to protect our community, others and I were helped with guidance from our then city attorney, Christy Hogin. As president of the homeowners association, I received many calls from concerned council members offering support and encouragement. When our efforts were most strained after a particularly difficult Coastal Commission hearing, and with extra encouragement by then Mayor Joan House, our then city attorney, Richard Terzian, launched the lawsuit which he continued after he left his post in Malibu. We were fortunate to have such a skilled attorney to represent us.
The Conservancy indicates that it will fight the current ruling and that it will appeal to the California Supreme Court. If the court accepts the case, the battle will continue. This important issue goes far beyond our local problems. With the new ruling, the Conservancy must now follow local laws wherever it operates. Taking the longer view, this is the same issue that we now have with the Coastal Commission, and which ultimately threatens other cities throughout the state. Fundamentally, this has become a matter of politically created state agencies, in one way or another, exempting themselves from local laws, and then with poor legislative support, assuming the power both to create and certify local laws. We must take the long view and work together as a community to preserve local self-governance and our constitutional rights.
Ruth White