On behalf of every thoughtful resident of Malibu, I would like to express my profound disappointment at the false and misleading ad published in your July 4 edition by an organization calling itself the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy.
The massive ad with a purported accurate map of the ESHA (Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas) designations in Malibu would imply that the new Land Use Plan proposed by the California Coastal Commission would affect very few, if any, property owners in the city. Only in the small print do they disclose that numerous ESHA areas were omitted presumably because they were irrelevant. What they fail to disclose is the fact that the plan affects all those who are “adjacent to” ESHA, qualify as ESHA “buffer” and those properties which have the “potential for sensitive species or habitat.” By omitting most of the designations on their map, the Conservancy is attempting to trick property owners in Malibu into believing that they’ll be OK, and it’s only the new guy who will to deal with the problem.
By the Coastal Commission’s own admission, their ESHA designation affects 49.1 percent of the properties in Malibu. The Malibu Conservancy’s 6 percent figure is a bald-faced lie.
The Conservancy also fails to disclose that the plan repeals the Malibu code sections which “grandfather” existing uses and protect them from future violation. In fact, everyone “in or adjacent to ESHA” will have to comply with the very strict provisions of the plan, even if it means removing pools, barns, tennis courts, guest houses, non-native landscaping or even the second floor. Try disclosing that to some future buyer of your home.
The Malibu Conservancy should be ashamed of themselves. How believable is anything from a self-appointed “environmental” organization that would stoop to pure fabrication in order to win their point. Malibu is smarter than that.
Ray Slayton,
executive director
Recreation and Land Use Preservation Foundation