The long-sought Malibu Bay Company Development agreement will now go before voters of Malibu. Several groups say legal challenges to the development deal could be made.
By Jonathan Friedman/Special to the Malibu Times
The City Council has approved the Malibu Bay Company (MBC) Development Agreement, setting up a November election that will be the most significant vote in Malibu since the one for cityhood. Monday’s approval comes after a week’s worth of delays during which City Attorney Christi Hogin and MBC attorney Dick Volpert negotiated the time frame Malibu has to purchase the Chili Cook-Off site, the most significant portion of the agreement.
There are three scenarios in which the MBC could develop its properties.
Under the first scenario, the city has three years to purchase the Chili Cook-Off property for $25 million regardless of any litigation or California Coastal Commission delays. If the city is unable to do this, then any deal is off and the MBC can build on its properties under the zoning code without having to give the city any public benefits.
The second is if the city is unable to buy the Chili Cook-Off site within three years because it has not come up with the money, then most of the elements of the original agreement go into effect. This would allow the company to develop on the Chili Cook-Off site. But as Councilmember Jeff Jennings pointed out, the likelihood of that being the only issue preventing the city from purchasing the site is remote. Although, he and Barovsky said they were upset with somebody who has been in Sacramento trying to influence the state not to support the city’s attempt to get loans and grants. After the meeting Ozzie Silna said if they were speaking about him, they were wrong that he did that.
Jennings said there was an incentive for those opposed to the agreement to keep it in the courts for the next three years. He also pictured a scenario in which the Coastal Commission puts so many conditions on the agreement that neither the city nor the company can agree to it.
The third scenario has the city buying the site without any problems, and the revised agreement would go into effect.
However, regardless of the scenarios, it’s up to the voters of Malibu whether any agreement will go through at all. The item will go on the November ballot.
Furthermore, several of the public speakers at the city council meeting gave a preview for what might be legally challenged. Malibu Community Action Network (CAN) consultant Sandra Genis said California Environmental Quality Act guidelines were violated because a new Environmental Impact Report was not created for the development agreement. Wetlands Action Network Executive Director Marsha Hanscom agreed, saying the latest document, which was made available to the public only hours before the meeting, was required to be circulated through the community for a period of time. She added that the city had not gone through the proper procedure to meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act as well.
Several other speakers focused their comments on a portion of the agreement allowing MBC President Jerry Perenchio to hook most of his properties, including the Malibu Colony Plaza and his controversial Malibu Colony private golf course to any wastewater treatment facility that might be built on the Chili Cook-Off property.
“(This is) neatly solving his (Pernechio’s) unpermitted golf course wastewater issue, along with those that may exist on his other properties as result of age and use,” Efrom Fader said.
At one point during the meeting Monday night, Malibu CAN leader and MBC opponent Steve Uhring played a clip from the group’s June meeting at which Mayor Ken Kearsley called the development agreement a “crapshoot.”
“The mayor is absolutely correct, this is a crapshoot,” Uhring said after playing the recording a second time. “And the more we understand about it, the more we don’t know.”
Kearsley said playing the recording was a misrepresentation, since at the time he was speaking of the revised agreement in its earliest stages when several scenarios could have led to the MBC being able to still develop under the original agreement. Although most of the speakers objected to the agreement or at least to putting it on the November ballot without further research, there were some who said the time had come.
“We’ve been 10 years talking about this-negotiation, workshops, more study, more negotiation,” Marlene Matlow said. ” I think it’s time for the council to finally say, let’s send it to a very intelligent community to vote on it.”
Also at the meeting, the council approved two amendments to the zoning code regarding telecommunication facility installation and one that allowed somebody to get a permit even if he had another violation on his property. With the previous zoning law, a person could not get a permit to fix a violation because that same violation disallowed him from getting a permit. And the city approved a $1 contract with WildRescue for animal rescue services, despite the objection of California Wildlife Center, which already provides the service and said to have two would be confusing.