Perhaps Mr. Damm, deputy director of the Coastal Commission, could explain the huge (turns out to be 50.4 acres) hole in the ESHA that is northwest of Pepperdine’s existing campus. This is the excavation being made to build Pepperdine’s upper campus, which was approved originally by Coastal in approving Pepperdine’s LRDP in 1989. Then, in October, 1999, the Commission approved the excavation of 4.5 million cubic yards of dirt. That is enough dirt to place or remove a layer of over two feet on every one of the 50.4 acres, and is more volume than is contained in the Hoover Dam.
The land on which this excavation is being made is obviously an extension of the green ESHA shown on Coastal’s LCP City of Malibu site maps, even the City of Malibu.
What I do not understand is how Coastal can justify such an obvious disruption of an area that they suddenly are defining as “ESHA” and still justify, on any basis, being so restrictive on us little homeowners in the proposed LCP. I have read the proposed LCP cover-to-cover. It left my head spinning, and given Coastal’s record of allowing big developers and landowners to proceed unchecked (just look at Newport Beach’s development since 1976 when the Coastal Act became law, on land which was at one time covered with native vegetation just like ours), any reasonable person has to wonder where they are going with this. Maybe Mr. Damm knows.
Don Maclay