Malibu will now submit Local Coastal Program amendment proposals to the California Coastal Commission in phases. Coastal staff promises to comment on them, even if it does not support them.
By Jonathan Friedman/ Special to The Malibu Times
The city of Malibu and the California Coastal Commission reached an agreement late last week in which the city will withdraw its Local Coastal Program amendment application while the Coastal Commission will work with Malibu to create a new one.
This came after several exchanges of letters to clarify details between Malibu’s City Manager Katie Lichtig and California Coastal Commission Director Peter Douglas.
With the agreement, the city will send LCP amendment proposals to the Coastal Commission in phases. The first one will include a set of 20 items that have already been negotiated by the city and coastal staff and three items that will be selected exclusively by the city in the coming months. After receiving and reviewing the first amendment proposal, the coastal staff within six months must either recommend its approval to the coastal voting body or suggest to the city how the amendment could be modified.
Last year, Malibu submitted an LCP amendment proposal to the coastal staff for review. The amendment consists of hundreds of pages worth of proposed changes to the LCP, a document drafted by the Coastal Commission that establishes zoning laws for coastal permitting. Jack Ainsworth, director of the Coastal Commission’s South Central Coast District, recently informed the city that coastal staff believed the amendment was an attempt to rewrite the LCP, and it would be recommending to the 12 voters on the commission to vote against the amendment. Ainsworth added that the staff would not inform the city how the amendment features could be modified to become approvable. But Ainsworth offered to work with the city on revising the LCP if it would withdraw its amendment proposal.
City Manager Lichtig said the new agreement is a significant step because of the features requiring coastal staff to at least comment on an amendment proposal, even if it does not support it, and that a six-month deadline is established for the staff to make a decision.
The process to draft the first LCP amendment will begin this month at a meeting of the subcommittee that meets on zoning issues, which is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 23. The subcommittee will decide on what three city-selected items should be included in the amendment. That recommendation will later go before the City Council. After the council addresses the recommendation, it will go before the Planning Commission and then back before the council for final approval. Lichtig said she expects the amendment to be ready for coastal staff for review by December or January.
The new agreement comes as the first friendly moment in what has often been a difficult relationship between Malibu and the Coastal Commission, which has included nearly three years of failed litigation by the city in an attempt to get rid of the LCP.
In 2002, the Coastal Commission adopted a Malibu LCP drafted by the state agency after the state government passed a law giving it the right to do so. The law was drafted by the Legislature and put into effect because of complaints of overbearing lobbying in Sacramento by Malibu residents and a perception that Malibu was not making any progress in drafting its LCP.
Many residents said the Coastal Commission-drafted document was unacceptable, and more than 2,400 signatures were gathered in a petition demanding the LCP go before the city’s voters. This led to litigation in which the state challenged the city’s ability to vote on the LCP and the city challenged the state’s ability to pass a law that called for the Coastal Commission to draft the Malibu LCP.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Allan J. Goodman ruled in favor of the Costal Commission in 2003. And a panel from California’s Second Appellate District affirmed the decision the following year. Malibu’s hope for a reversal ended later in 2004 when the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
One of Malibu’s last hopes ended earlier this year when the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Coastal Commission in its case against the nonprofit organization Marine Forests Society. In that case, Marine Forests had alleged that the makeup of the Coastal Commission was unconstitutional. Since a Sacramento Superior Court judge and a Court of Appeal panel had already sided with the nonprofit organization, Malibu hoped the Supreme Court would do the same and in the process invalidate the Coastal Commission and the LCP it had written.
The city still has another case remaining against the Coastal Commission that challenges the actual content of the LCP. City Attorney Christi Hogin said that case is being litigated before Judge Goodman in pieces, but she said she has little hope it will conclude with the LCP being invalidated.