In response to David Visher urging our City Council to just accept the Coastal Commission’s LCP so he can have ‘his property rights’ back, I suggest he weigh his temporary financial drain against the permanent loss of retirement savings and equity that thousands of senior and middle income people in Malibu will endure if this LCP becomes law.
As one of the nearly 2,800 residents who signed the Referendum, I believe our City Council has an obligation to protect these people. Owners of older homes will receive less money when selling if buyers can’t add on because they are near pseudo ‘ESHA’ or because they can now only use a maximum area of 10,000 square feet of their lot. Critical retirement income for many of our seniors will be lost if they are unable to maintain the granny flats that in many cases sustain them financially.
If you believe you are not in ESHA and the LCP will not affect you, read p. 277 of the LCP where the Coastal Commission, in an unprecedented illegal action, claims jurisdiction in perpetuity over all coastal development permits ever issued by the Commission, including condition compliance. This means if your house was built after 1976, the Commission will always be all over you and will enforce the LCP in any way it wishes. The Commission is now ordering homeowners in Monte Nido to demolish horse corrals if they possess a native tree on their property under the excuse that their yards have been newly reclassified as “native woodland ESHA.”
We as a people are not safe if we surrender our right to vote on our local laws to state appointed bureaucrats. I think the majority of Malibuites will agree that our City Council should stay the course and appeal the decision while asking the judge to allow the city to issue coastal permits to those who want them, without relinquishing the city’s legal right to appeal.
Lottie Cheirin