Ozzie Silna letter in the March 7, 2002, The Malibu Times responding to my question as to why Sara Wan’s home on Carbon Mesa was excluded from the Coastal Commission’s designation as an ESHA area takes the curious position that ESHAs in Malibu should be expanded beyond the vastly expanded Coastal Commission designation of ESHA areas in Malibu to include Sara Wan’s home. I assume that Sara has blessed this position, since Ozzie and Sara have recently partnered in arranging political fundraisers for the author of AB988, the bill which made all this furor possible.
He also seems to support the position that after the Coastal Commission has designated an area as an ESHA, it should be the property owner’s duty to come forward with evidence that the property should no longer be considered to be in an ESHA (which itself would vastly expand the land of Malibu property owners ensnared in this bureaucratic nightmare).Of course, the property owner, according to the draft LCP, must pay for obtaining this site-specific evidence, as well as to pay any fee imposed by the City to recover the cost of review of a proposed project by the City’s Environmental Review Board.
Ozzie stresses in his letter that the site-specific biology study required under the draft LCP “applies only to new development as do virtually all ESHA issues.” However, the term “new development” is defined in the Coastal Act by what is excluded from that term, not by what is included, and it includes as “new development” property improvements far beyond just building a new house on vacant land. It would include putting up a new wall or fence, or putting in a swimming pool, a shed, a playhouse (even a child’s tree house), a cabana, a guest house, a new detached garage, a corral, or a barn, and almost anything that is a replacement, improvement, reconstruction or repair of an existing structure which results in floor area, height or bulk more than 10 percent greater than the existing structure.
It is ironic that Ozzie Silna is taking such a strong position on this issue, since Ozzie’s own home is not located within the Malibu city limits, and the Coastal Commission’s draft LCP will not apply to him if it ever becomes law.
Edward Everett Vaill