Despite a recommendation of approval by the California Coastal Commission staff, the commission rejects the proposal for Daniel and Luciana Forge’s bed and breakfast inn, citing a need for more information on ESHA issues.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
Malibu residents Daniel and Luciana Forge hit another roadblock last week in their attempt to develop their land on Pacific Coast Highway next to their Beau Rivage Restaurant when the California Coastal Commission unanimously rejected the proposal for a 16,240-square-foot, 27-unit bed and breakfast.
However, the project, located near Corral Canyon Road, is not dead in the water; if it is determined the commissioners’ concerns could be satisfied with the proposal being slightly changed, then the application could return to the commission. But if major changes become necessary, a new application would have to be made for city approval, and a new environmental impact report would have to be drafted.
The decision has riled supporters of the project and the Forges’ attorney said that public speakers who aired their views against the project at the coastal meeting on Aug. 10 unfairly swayed the commission’s decision.
The commission’s rejection came despite a recommendation from coastal staff to approve the project. Coastal staff said the project satisfied the Malibu Local Coastal Program requirement for all development to be constructed at least 100 feet from all environmental sensitive habitat areas, or ESHAs. But several commissioners said the coastal staff had not properly designated all the ESHA, and the project still remained within the 100-foot threshold.
“I don’t think [coastal staff] did all [their] homework,” Commission Vice-Chair Patrick Kruer said. “I don’t think we’ve done a good enough analysis of the alternatives. And I know it can be better.”
An area where coastal staff and the commission disagreed on the designation consists of vegetation species that would qualify it as ESHA. Coastal staff said the area had been disturbed by permitted development from several decades ago, making it no longer an undisturbed ESHA needing protection. But the commission said the area had been disturbed by unpermitted trailers, campers, other vehicles and debris. Also, goats that were recently placed in the area for brush clearance (they have since been removed) ate the bark off a tree. The Malibu LCP does not allow a site to lose its ESHA designation because of the effects of illegal development.
The commission’s rejection was celebrated as a victory for the Sierra Club, which sued the city of Malibu when it approved the project for a municipal permit in 2003. A Los Angeles Superior Court ruled for Malibu in 2004 and the case went before a Court of Appeal panel earlier this month. The court has not yet released a decision. Representatives from the Sierra Club, including attorney Frank Angel and Dave Brown from the Sierra Club’s Santa Monica Mountains Task Force, spoke at the meeting in opposition to the project.
“From day one these people [the Forges] have refused to give an inch in a situation that clearly called for compromise,” Brown said after the meeting. “So the commission did what it had to do.”
Several Malibu slow-growth supporters and environmentalists joined the Sierra club at the meeting to speak against the project. Alan Block, the Forges’ attorney said after the meeting that this had an influence on how the commission voted.
“I think it was a situation when there is so much mud slung against a wall, they [Coastal Commission] think that there must be something there,” Block said. “I don’t think there is.”
Block said he and his clients would have to sit down and discuss what they would do next. The Forges declined to comment.
At least one commissioner confirmed Block’s suspicion that the vote was influenced by the public speakers. During the meeting, Commissioner Jim Aldinger said, “When there’s so much opposition to this, it makes it difficult for me to approve it. I don’t know what it is that would make this project better, but it seems like we need to go back to the drawing board.”
The project went before the Coastal Commission for a coastal development permit rather than before the city because if the permit had been granted by the commission, it would have functioned as an amendment to the one received by the Forges in 1989 on the same property for a shopping center. That permit was granted before the Malibu LCP was put into law and placed the city in charge of coastal permitting. (As a condition for the 1989 permit, the Forges had agreed to remove the debris, vehicles and other items from the property, but had not yet done so. This would also be a condition for a newly issued permit.)
In the commission’s rejection vote, it allowed the Forges the ability to modify their application and be able to return to the commission with a revised project without having to go back to the city for preliminary approval. But City Attorney Christi Hogin said on Friday that this could only happen if the project were slightly changed. A major revision, she said, would mean the Forges would have to restart the entire process. Their application would no longer function as an amendment proposal to the previous coastal permit, but rather as a proposal for a new project. A new environmental impact report would have to be drafted and the city would then be asked to approve the municipal and coastal permits. However, an appeal would send that application to the Coastal Commission.