The Malibu West Homeowners Association Board of Directors held a last-minute vote Monday in an attempt to “negotiate with the city” over the Trancas Canyon Park project.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
Malibu West Homeowners Association’s members voted on Monday to file a lawsuit against the city to prevent from Trancas Canyon Park being built as designed, or altogether.
The residents voted 73-76 in favor of the lawsuit.
The homeowners association’s board of directors distributed ballots received by Malibu West residents Thursday and Friday of last week, which were due by 5 p.m. Monday, resident Justine Petretti said Tuesday in a telephone interview, adding that some residents felt it was not enough time to submit the anonymous ballots.
” …the Board voted to file a lawsuit on behalf of the HOA, to protect our rights because of the impending statute of limitations, and in an attempt to negotiate with the city to preserve the knoll and ridge and a few other items which we believe are important for our community,” stated an e-mail circulated Tuesday to residents from the association. “We are in the process of retaining counsel to file on our behalf. We have asked counsel to attempt to toll the matter (extend the time for negotiation rather than move to proceed to further legal action) because we want to be able to interact with the city in the upcoming workshops to adopt a plan that is suitable to the majority [Malibu West] interests.”
The approved development plan for Trancas Canyon Park, a seven-acre public park on a 13.5-acre site located at 6050 Trancas Canyon Road, approximately a half mile north of the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway, has been long disputed by residents who support it, oppose it, or requested modifications to save a ridge, or natural rock formation, from being graded.
Despite the city’s $300,000 park plan modifications in March to spare the grading of 27.5 feet of the ridge, some Malibu West residents oppose Trancas Canyon Park from being built altogether.
The city council at its April 13 meeting voted to conduct a public workshop Thursday this week to garner community input on any potential changes to the park’s design before it is voted on at the council’s May 11 meeting.
“It seems very strange that they’re asking to sue,” Mayor Pro Tem Sharon Barovsky said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “We’ve already saved the ridge and we’re meeting to see if we can satisfy their desire to reduce grading on the knoll. It seems to me they should wait to see the outcome [of the workshop].”
Petretti said the homeowners association could only spend five percent of its operating cost on lawsuits. She estimated the one proposed against the city would cost $36,500 after the association chipped in, which would “probably” be left up to the community to cover.
“There’s no way in hell I will write a check to support that [lawsuit],” Petretti said. “The whole thing is monkey business. It’s absolutely obscene.
“I’m going to see to it that some action is taken against the board,” she continued. “There are rules that need to be followed and they are maneuvering it to their favor.”
Karen Norvet, a member of the Malibu West Homeowners Association’s Board of Directors, declined to comment on any other aspects of the vote in a telephone interview Tuesday, but said, “It [the vote] was done all on legal protocol within guidelines of the Malibu West [Homeowners Association]. All information was accurate.”
Petretti said four of the five people opening and tallying the ballots were park oppositionists, causing “a little bit of a conflict of interest.”
The association’s board of directors is comprised of residents Lloyd Greenberg (who is also president), Pat Healy, John Rosenberg, Mark Goss, Eileen Bice, Karen Norvet and Mark Wetton. None of the calls made to each on Tuesday were returned before press time Tuesday evening.
Three of the seven members of the board have publicly stated their opposition to Trancas Canyon Park during city council meetings. Norvet’s husband, John Norvet, was one of five residents who filed appeals in February to the Planning Commission’s November approval of the park’s environmental impact report.
The appellants questioned whether the EIR adequately assessed the project impacts, which include noise, traffic, cultural resource protection, possible fire hazards, lighting, grading in an environmentally sensitive habitat area, hillside protection and impacts to views, wildlife and natural resources.