When it comes to brainstorming what the community would like the City of Malibu to do with undeveloped commercial property in the Civic Center, no idea is off limits.
At the second ad hoc committee meeting for community members interested in coming up with ways to retire vacant land in the Civic Center, Mayor Laura Rosenthal and Councilwoman Joan House remained intent on hearing out residents’ ideas.
Among the possibilities, attendees pointed out the need for a recreational area, the need for a permanent site for an urgent care center and a desire for sports fields. One suggestion, however, stood out among all the rest, and also happens to be an amenity Malibu currently lacks: a cemetery.
The two closest cemeteries to Malibu are Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village and Conejo Mountain Funeral Home and Memorial Park in Camarillo.
Dennis Torres, a Malibu resident and real estate expert at Pepperdine University, led the cemetery discourse at the meeting on Tuesday of last week. He initially brought up the idea at the ad hoc’s first meeting on July 10.
“I think many people in this community … would like to remain in this community after they no longer can breathe,” Torres said. “They’d have a permanent home.”
He also pointed out the theoretical profitability of cemeteries, especially in a coveted area such as Malibu.
“It’s also very possible that people, instead of paying $8,000 or $9,000 would be willing to pay $50,000 a plot,” Torres said. “The win-win will be the landowner can make a return on the property, the city will have open space, park space, whatever.”
Though his suggestion was the butt of several jokes and laughs from attendees, the cemetery idea also sparked intrigue. Some cemeteries, Torres found, are built to resemble parks where the dead are buried underground and their loved ones can use a GPS application on a smartphone to find gravesites — no tombstones necessary.
Torres cited Forever Fernwood in Mill Valley, Calif., as this type of successfully implemented eco-friendly cemetery that goes against the grain of traditional cemeteries. Mill Valley is just north of San Francisco.
“[Forever Fernwood does] not allow traditional cut and polished headstones or bronze markers but a small natural boulder can be engraved and used as a marker,” according to its web site. “Some families choose simply to blend into the hillside allowing each tree, flower, songbird and butterfly to become a memorial to a loved one and a hope for the future.”
In their final resting place, guests can choose to be buried in a shroud, a wicker casket or a simple pine box.
“When do we start?” an audience member jokingly asked.
Joyce Parker-Bozylinski, planning director for the City of Malibu, said local zoning codes would not permit a cemetery in the Civic Center.
“In order for somebody to put in a cemetery, it would require a code amendment,” Bozylinski said.
The amendment would have to gain approval from the Malibu Planning Commission, the City Council and the California Coastal Commission before local and municipal code changed.
Whatever facilities Malibu ultimately deems best, be it a cemetery, park or both, a long bureaucratic road lies ahead before any of these ideas have a chance of coming to fruition.
The City of Malibu needs to figure out funding mechanisms for purchasing vacant land, how to stay within Malibu’s 15 percent floor area ratio requirement (meaning only 15 percent of a property’s floor space can be developed) and how feasible it is that property owners in the Civic Center will be willing to sell land to the city at an affordable price.
The ad hoc is set to meet again Sept. 11, where each subcommittee will give more detailed reports on areas of research such as bond, tax and revenue research, zoning codes and land availability in the Civic Center. Dozens of subcommittee members missed this meeting. Rosenthal said several told her they were on vacation.