City staff will review seven trails disputed by property owners and changes will be made before the California Coastal Commission makes a final vote authorizing the map.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
The Malibu City Council unanimously approved an updated Parkland and Trails System Map at its regular meeting Monday night, although it agreed to consider removing seven trails contested by property owners.
The trails map will now go to the California Coastal Commission for approval of incorporation into the city’s Local Coastal Program. The commission has 60 days to respond, but city Associate Planner Joseph Smith said the commission usually extends the review period for such LCP amendments for up to one year. During that time, city staff will meet with property owners opposed to various trails to resolve the differences, then add the revisions to the LCP before the Coastal Commission considers the amendment.
More than 120 miles of trails are included in the updated trails map, which is the culmination of a process begun in 1999 to create a Trails Master Plan for the city. Approximately 2,795 parcels of public and private property are affected by the updated map. The map was approved by the Planning Commission in February.
More than 30 people commented on the measure, most of them property owners upset that new trails will encroach on their property.
Bonsall Drive resident Mary Lou Wahlbergh asked that the Rosemary Thyme Trail be removed from the map.
“This is going to have a very deleterious effect on the value of my property, which will probably be [inherited by] my children in the next 10 years,” Wahlbergh said.
But supporters of the map stressed that trails would not be forced on unwilling property owners, and that the map was merely a “wish list” for trails the city might want to build in the future.
“It has not been a cavalier effort,” said Don Schmitz, who chairs the Trails Master Plan Ad Hoc Committee, which created the map.
Schmitz said the committee had invested thousands of hours in the past 12 years to create the map, and the contested trails were a small percentage of the map.
Other speakers argued with what was not in the map.
Eric Bruins, a cycling advocate, argued that the map needed to include a trail along Pacific Coast Highway.
“Who among you does not dream about the day that it will be safe to walk and bicycle on PCH, on Malibu’s main street?” Bruins asked.
Several council members expressed reservations after hearing from property owners opposed to specific trails. Councilmember Lou La Monte advocated removing all of the contested trails, and sending them back to the Planning Commission for approval.
“My feeling is that any map that you wind up on is very hard to get off … these people have property rights,” La Monte said.
But Planning Director Joyce Parker-Bozylinski said if the council voted to exclude the contested trails and send them back to the Planning Commission, thousands of property owners would have to be noticed again by the city and new public hearings would need to be held, a process that could take years.
The council ultimately voted to approve the map, excluding some contested trails and with some conditions. In the next few months, city staff will meet with property owners opposed to specific trails, and consider additions such as a bicycle and pedestrian trail along Pacific Coast Highway. Those changes will then be incorporated into the amended LCP before the Coastal Commission considers it.
Mayor John Sibert said the project was so large that it would have to be resolved in phases. Sibert said outstanding issues, such as a trail along Pacific Coast Highway and greater north to south access from the mountains to the beaches, still needed to be resolved.
“This process has got to be evolutionary,” Sibert said. “This is one step.”
Due to time constraints, the council delayed an agenda item that would have established a trails incentive program until its May 9 meeting. The incentive program would offer development credits to property owners who grant easements across their property for trails.