An environmental report on the proposed Rancho Malibu Hotel in Malibu’s Civic Center is set to be released for public evaluation and comment within the next few weeks, according to Planning Director Joyce Parker-Bozylinski.
The hotel is being developed on a parcel owned by Malibu local Richard Weintraub. The 27.9-acre triangular land parcel sits at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Malibu Canyon Road, across from Pepperdine University.
Plans for the luxury hotel include 146 rooms, most of which will be in 21 detached two-story ‘casitas,’ 543 parking spaces, two retail shopping centers, a restaurant, meeting rooms, swimming pools and an onsite wastewater treatment plant.
The pending release of the environment impact report (EIR) comes 16 months after locals heavily scrutinized hotel plans at a public scoping meeting in May 2012. Residents raised fears over fire safety, possible destruction of cultural artifacts from the Chumash tribe that may still exist at the site and the heavy traffic expected to be generated by the massive plans.
Weintraub has defended the project as “the single largest economic generator in the city’s history.”