The one-size-fits-all View Restoration and Preservation Ordinance draft collides with various overlay districts. A member quits.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
In spite of voting 7-2 to approve a rough draft of the Malibu View Restoration and Preservation Ordinance last month, a palpable tension existed among members of the View Protection Task Force during a special meeting Thursday of last week at city hall. The meeting followed a denouncement by Mayor Andy Stern of the task force’s announcement that it had finished a draft plan. Stern had said it was not up to the task force to draft a plan, but to gather community input.
The tension became apparent during the city council’s regular meeting last week on Tuesday when task force member Hiro Kotchounian renounced his membership.
Kotchounian, president of the Malibu Country Estates Homeowners Association, on Tuesday in a telephone interview, said, “I stepped down from the task force mainly for its deleting or removing the Malibu Country Estates’ view protection ordinance [in the approved rough draft].
“That ordinance has worked over and over perfectly well,” he continued. “No existing ordinance should be deleted by a task force drafting an ordinance.”
The citywide ordinance, as proposed, only regulates foliage and would require property owners to remove or trim trees that impact the primary views (or “visually impressive scenes” like those of the ocean or of prominent landmarks such as the Malibu Pier) of neighboring private homes. It would also entitle property owners to restore and preserve a primary view that existed at the time they acquired their property.
However, the one-size-fits-all ordinance collides with various overlay districts including the Malibu Colony, La Costa, Malibu Country Estates, the knolls above the Civic Center and Trancas Beach, all of which have their own view protection laws that were voted on by residents and approved by the city council years ago.
“I believe that any city view ordinance should not alter other view protection rules that are in place and working well,” task force member Suzanne Zimmer wrote in an e-mail to The Malibu Times on Tuesday.
“They [the task force] should keep working on a citywide ordinance without disturbing the existing ordinances,” Kotchounian said.
Task force members at last week’s meeting continued to debate various aspects of the proposed ordinance until an argument erupted over whether they were required to issue a minority report to council members Sharon Barovsky and John Sibert, who had asked to see one when the ordinance is presented to city council this month.
In a telephone interview on Monday, Barovsky said she is “hoping there will be a minority report. I want to hear both sides. I want to know what the arguments were.”
Task force member Louis La Monte confirmed Tuesday night in a telephone interview that a minority report is currently underway.
Colleen Berg, task force mediator, suggested that oppositionists and supporters of the drafted ordinance look over it and provide their own individual disapprovals.
“That way it’s not a ‘them versus us’,” Berg said. “You can’t fight with the minority.”
The View Protection Task Force will meet once more at city hall on June 9 at 6 p.m. before they present the proposed ordinance to city council later this month.