Media mogul David Geffen has agreed to open a beach easement on his property to the public. Some have raised safety concerns.
By Troy Dove / Special to The Malibu Times
After fighting for nearly three years to keep the gates locked on a public beach path next to his Carbon Beach home, David Geffen, co-founder of Dreamworks SKG, handed over his keys last Wednesday. Steve Hoye, co-founder of the nonprofit group Access for All, accepted the keys to two separate gates that previously barred public access to the beach as the group accepted the responsibility of maintaining the coastal access-way.
Geffen has also agreed to reimburse the state and the nonprofit group $300,000 in legal fees, according to a report from the Associated Press. Geffen’s office declined to comment on the subject.
Although happy with the access for the public, former Malibu Planning Commissioner Ted Vaill says he has reservations about the maintenance and safety.
“I’m glad to see there is access there,” Vaill said. “There is a long stretch of land where there is no public access-way. And it’s a nice beach. As a concept I think it’s great that the public can [access it], but as a practical matter a lot more has to be done.”
Vaill said that any group taking responsibility for these access-ways not only has to provide for the safety of the residents and visitors, but also to the marine life that inhabit these beaches.
“I don’t think Access for All has the means to do that,” Vaill said. “There’s sensitive marine life there that is in danger of being destroyed if you don’t have adequate protection. If you have a lot of unsupervised people going there, they’re going to harm the water.”
Vaill also raised safety concerns. “People will be jaywalking in the middle of the road [Pacific Coast Highway] to get across to the access-way,” he said. “Vehicles travel at a high rate of speed, there are going to be deaths.”
The Geffen access-way will operate under set hours from dawn to dusk, which Vaill said should help curb security problems or injuries incurred by people trying to access the beach at night. But Vaill warned that people leaving the path at dusk could be hard to see by oncoming motorists.
“I myself have almost been killed walking across a crosswalk, a designated crosswalk, and people have just come on through,” Vaill said.
City Councilmember Ken Kearsley echoed Vaill’s concerns about the lack of parking and the potential for danger people face if they try to cross the road to reach the public access-way.
“There is no parking mandated,” Kearsley said. “It’s a free for all. I just hope people don’t park across the street and try to run across Pacific Coast Highway on a Sunday afternoon.”
Hoye of Access for All refused to comment on the subject or indicate what the group plans to do to address these concerns.
The public easement, granted more than 20 years ago by Geffen in order to obtain building permits from the California Costal Commission, was about to expire when Access for All signed up for the responsibility of maintaining it in 2002. Since then, the issue has been tied up in litigation.
Providing public coastal access has been a major concern in Malibu and other California coastal cities for years. To help ensure the public would always have access to the beach the California Coastal Commission routinely required that public easements be donated by residents seeking building permits on beachfront property as late as the early 1980s.
This practice ended in 1987, but the easements donated prior to this date were still considered valid. However, with no organization in place to maintain the easements, many of them expired and reverted back to the landowners. Many others frequently got tied up in litigation as landowners fought to reacquire their property.
The Associated Press reported that the Geffen walkway “is just one of 10 the commission wants opened in some of Malibu’s most exclusive beachfront communities.”
At Broad Beach, Marshall Grossman, board member of the Trancas Property Owners Association, has been fighting against the opening of additional vertical easements in the area for years. Grossman is currently meeting with Coastal Commission staff to establish a consistent lateral access grant along Broad Beach, where there has been considerable dispute over the boundaries between public and private land.
Grossman said he didn’t have enough information about the Geffen case to comment on whether it might have any influence on future easement cases in Broad Beach or on other beaches throughout Malibu.