Attention must be paid

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    In case you missed it, there will be a March 22 Malibu Planning Commission public hearing (10 a.m. at Michael Landon Center, Bluffs Park) to discuss nine amendments to our City’s General Plan that will accommodate the planned Malibu Bay Company Development Agreement in our Civic Center. It would have been easy to miss this notice as it was under ‘Legal Notices’ in our local papers (a section not many people review regularly). I, for one, am shocked that such significant modifications to our General Plan are so informally publicized, which is why I am writing this letter and notifying citizens of this critically important public hearing.

    Since this notice and amendments are written in legal language, they are not easy to read or understand. From a novice’s interpretation, however, these amendments would revise our General Plan in favor of the Malibu Bay Company Development Agreement. These changes include:

    Establishing a “Town Center” Specific Plan Overlay District that would amend our Municipal Code to specify permitted uses and development standards for that district (uses and standards that the Malibu Bay Company needs to develop).

    Construction of 85,000 square feet of office building, post office, restaurant and retail space.

    Construction of 185,000 square feet of general commercial, movie theater, restaurant, market and amphitheater on the Chili Cookoff Site.

    Construction of 12,000 square feet of commercial office space on the St. John’s site.

    Expansion of the existing wastewater disposal facility on the Winter Canyon site.

    These amendments add up to almost 300,000 square feet of additional commercial development in our Civic Center. This total does not include the 155,000 square feet of development planned for the nearby La Paz property and the 45,000 square feet for the Schultz property (that includes a large drug store across from Tony’s Taverna) nor addresses the required parking lots for all of it. This also doesn’t address the significant planned development for the Trancas Town community.

    Call me a dreamer but I feel that Malibu can have a park in our Civic Center, can have playing fields for our kids, and can have a community center. We can have all this and avoid the nightmare of increased traffic, congestion, pollution and more. All this can be done without selling out to major developers. Malibu can take a stand and mitigate and minimize this pending development to that which we feel best serves our community.

    Please plan on attending the public hearing on Saturday, March 22, 10 a.m. at Bluffs Park, Michael Landon Center and voice your feelings.

    Tami Clark