Trancas Park needs time for final review
I was invited by the editor to clarify thoughts and concerns about the product and process the city went through with Trancas Park, and how this might be corrected now and in the future.
Step one: the product. The plan approved on March 9 was flawed in many ways, cutting a ridge 28 feet, destroying primary views and privacy, not fitting the environment. Only an engineer would flattop the hillside, relocating 128,000 cubic yards in the process.
There are other flaws. A 1,000 foot, dead-end road uses valuable space, is close to a neighbor’s house with a drop-off at the far end, distant from venues. Detention basin 8 feet above neighbor’s yard invites future liability. Tot lot adjacent to snake habitat, to name a few.
Step two: where did process break down? The program is the most important part of design process. Why a quarter-acre tot lot, when Bluff’s Park is a fraction that size? Why 24 picnic tables, when the Parks & and Recreation Master Plan suggests 34 for all of Malibu? Why a council member asks to include a basketball court, saying he would vote for it if other council members would agree? Not proper process!
Another aspect is the communication process. Why weren’t 3D designs superimposed on existing topography, and site sections through all cuts and fills? How did planning staff allow it to get so far without that? How did Planning Commission let it go this far? Who in the city’s process understood how to read grading plans?
Variances granted are hard to understand. In 36 years of practice in Malibu, I’m not aware of any architect given grading variances like these. How did staff and Planning Commission justify these variances? This path was traveled before public knew what was planned!
Grading was communicated deep inside the EIR for those who knew how to interpret it. This fits definition of communicating, but not if you want your client to understand and accept final product. That anyone suggested cutting down that ridge is shocking. This was described as having insignificant environmental impact! It’s incumbent on the city to lead and set standards, not to break them, especially environmental ones!
When suggested by council that people didn’t care until 11th hour, the fact is no one understood what was happening until 11th hour. Initial attempt to change the design resulted in another severe engineering solution. Half the hilltop was still being flattened and the other half cut down, creating a mining pit for the dog park.
When the city agreed to a workshop on April 23, a step in the right direction, there wasn’t a basis of trust in the neighborhood that the process would be higher caliber than experienced so far. This was the first time the public balanced trade offs between grading and amenities, and when they learned there wasn’t additional public review, they hired our firm for a design that includes all the inputs of that workshop.
A key agreement per consultant’s documentation of the workshop and city’s staff report was reducing the sport field 30 percent, yet this was not done. Our design included this reduction and other workshop requests, and in doing so, eliminated the 77,000 cubic yards of grading in the city’s new plan, except for little needed to widen existing road. The city’s plan still has a mining pit, 77,000 cubic yards of cut and fill, 1,000 foot dead end cul-de-sac, detention basin above neighbors’ lot, fence on the slope’s edge, etc.
When presenting alternative plan to the City Council correcting these problems, one thought they would be open minded, but… the council should have focused on and asked me and the engineer to explain the reasoning behind differences in design and discuss potential $1 million in savings, but they neglected doing so as minds were made up! They never compared merits of the two designs to that documented in the April 23 workshop. Instead, they declared the city consultant’s design was what the public decided in the workshop. Just because there is a workshop doesn’t mean consultants gets it right.
Step three, how do you correct this? If the city did a proper job with steps one and two (product and process), we wouldn’t need step three. When people are widely unhappy with the product, you can’t say, we’ve thought about this enough, we’re tired of it. Saying there’s always someone unhappy, therefore we need to finalize this, is saying we haven’t done a good job. What is being asked of council is the chance to go back to the public and ask which of these plans reflects more closely what you want. Getting it right would add little time, and this time would be gained back by four-month reduction in construction time, along with a probable 30 percent reduction in cost! Getting it over with shouldn’t be more important than getting it right.