After more than a year of delays and attempts by the two sides in a property dispute to come to a resolution, the City Council on Monday will hear an appeal of the Planning Commission’s approval for a lot line adjustment of four properties on Latigo Canyon Road. The landowners describe it as a simple lot line adjustment, while the appellants call it a threat to an old trail dating back to the 1940s.
The four-parcel property in question includes three parcels ranging in size from 1.92 acres to 6.5 acres and a fourth piece of land that is 121.73 acres. The proposal is to adjust the lot lines to create four parcels ranging in size from 28.3 acres to 42.9 acres, allowing for one large home on each parcel. One small structure currently sits on the entire property, and no homes are proposed for construction with the lot line adjustment request.
When the issue went before the Planning Commission in September last year, the same company owned the four parcels. They have since been sold to four separate companies, although all the new owners are still using private planning consultant Don Schmitz.
Following the Planning Commission’s approval of the lot line adjustment last year, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy filed an appeal, and a collection of nine nonprofit organizations and individuals filed a separate one. Originally their concerns focused on an allegation that the adjustment would pave the path for future homes on the property that would encroach on an environmentally sensitive habitat area, or ESHA, and a desire for the property owner to be required to dedicate a 3,000-foot trail on the property. But the appellants have since focused their attention squarely on the trail dedication.
“If they would give us the trail, we will leave them alone,” SMMC Deputy Director Paul Edelman said this week in an interview.
The SMMC is attempting to construct its Coastal Slope Trail, which would connect the east and west ends of Malibu, and without the inclusion of the trail on this property, “it would leave a major gap,” Edelman said.
But Schmitz said this week that Edelman and the other nine appellants’ (including the Sierra Club, Malibu Coalition for Slow Growth, the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, Temescal Canyon Association, the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy, People for Parks of Los Angeles and John Mazza) offer is simply not good enough. He said the only thing his clients will accept is an agreement that would allow 12,700-square-foot homes (the LCP states that homes cannot be larger than 11,172 square feet) on the properties. This would require a variance from the City Council, which the appellants would have no control over outside of advocating for the vote.”If they [the appellants] don’t want an incentive program, they’re basically saying this trail linkage should be given for free,” Schmitz said. “Which one of them is going to give me a wing of their house for free? This thinking is crazy.”
The appeal originally came before the City Council in January, but the council did not take any action, and instead asked the two sides to meet and come up with an agreement. Several meetings have occurred, but without a resolution. Edelman said his side is reluctant to make any agreement supporting larger homes.
“We could sign an agreement that we support the larger homes,” Edelman said. “But say we go in there [to the City Council hearing] supporting that. And if the council cuts down the sizes of the homes, then there’s no trail [donation].”
Schmitz made no attempt to deny that would be the case. But he said if the appellants would make the agreement with his clients, that should give them an incentive to come to the City Council meeting on Monday and passionately support the variance for an increased square footage.
Although the appellants have said they would support the lot line adjustment with a trail dedication, some of them are still commenting on the alleged ESHA intrusion this would create. Edelman accused the property owners of destroying a protected woody shrub area on the land last year. The Coastal Commission and the city biologist have denied that this area was protected because it had been disturbed many years ago (which usually negates the ESHA designation). But Edelman said he has aerial photos to prove the destroyed area was an ESHA. And, he says, an ESHA still remains there.
“I’ve been an ecologist for years, and I know what an ESHA is,” Edelman said. “They’re proposing a house right on an ESHA, which is thriving.”
Schmitz called this a complete fabrication.
“They’re taking aerial photographs and saying, ‘There’s brush there, it’s an ESHA,'” Schmitz said. “These guys are second guessing the California Coastal Commission, the project biologist and the city biologist. It’s a farce.”
Edelman said if the City Council approves the lot line adjustment, an appeal will immediately be filed with the Coastal Commission. He declined to answer whether this issue could eventually wind up in court.
A more than 2,000-page staff report has been drafted for the proposal in question.