One issue here in Malibu is whether Hollywood types get preferential treatment compared to your average resident. Every builder here has to deal with a restrictive set of rules designed to prevent turning Malibu into Laguna Beach. It’s nice that Streisand, Inc. maintains a “sanctuary” in Malibu. This should not insulate her from the reasonable request — among others — that her alleged $5,000.00 per month watering bill does not continue to undermine the beach bluff on which her massive compound is perched. Remember the San Diego woman killed this week by a collapsing ocean cliff? This is what environmental review is supposed to prevent. And please, don’t paint the extremely wealthy Miss Streisand as some kind of a victim, regardless of her humble beginnings. Consider her former neighbors where her old home now hosts near continual weddings, parties and fund-raisers. The traffic and noise they experience are relentless. As I hear it, the design of the proposed new structure has rooms for gift wrapping, media screenings, research and entertaining, yet only has two very small “bedrooms” designed with no closets and no view. It’s not a home, it’s a convention center.
Everyone fortunate enough to live here has worked their butts off for the privilege, generally without the benefit of a remarkable creative gift like she has. Democracy says we all have to play by the same rules.
Marshall Thompson