The Malibu Parks and Recreation Commission is asking council to tap the brakes on a decision for the newly acquired Trancas Field property.
The Parks & Recreation Commission was asked by City Council on Oct. 10 to gather input from the community on what to do with the newly acquired 35-acre Trancas Field site. They met last week to review the results of the online survey, focus groups and workshops that had been conducted in Malibu over the past few months. Based on that and further public comments made at the meeting, the commission decided to withhold any recommendations until a site analysis could be done and more was known about what would be happening at Bluffs Park.
Part of the reason for the fast-track study was resident Brian Strange’s offer last summer to pledge $1 million in matching funds if the city were to build a “Strange Skate Park” facility on the property in memory of his son Johnny Strange, a Malibu extreme athlete who died over a year ago. His offer was championed by Council Member Skylar Peak.
Despite holding multiple meetings and hosting an online survey, results about what residents want for the land were inconclusive. Commissioners weighed in, stating the effort was unnecessarily hasty.
“I think from the get-go this has been rushed … I feel we need to know what’s going to happen at Bluffs Park, and I can’t make a recommendation until then,” Commissioner Justine Petretti said. “We did our best, but a lot of questions still need to be answered before anything happens.”
“I think we were expected to push through a skate park recommendation in 30 days,” Commissioner Steve Parks said.
Commissioner Carl Randall noted, “We were tasked with the impossible, but I feel we got a lot of useful information. But what happens at Bluffs Park and the California Coastal Commission will absolutely affect what happens [at Trancas Field] … I feel Bluffs Park is the only place to put a skate park.”
Jesse Bobbett, the new parks and recreation director, said the results showed “most people want [Trancas Field] untouched.
“The big thing we heard in the meetings was about noise,” Bobbett explained. “Younger people want the skate parks, but it was a contentious issue – most said skate parks would be a better option for Bluffs Park.”
David Brotman, former chair of the planning commission, made public comments, including questioning how the commission could be expected to make any decision on the use of Trancas Field when no site analysis had been done.
“In any land use planning like this, a site analysis that includes traffic studies and geology reports needs to be done,” he advised.
Kristin Riesgo, recreation manager for the city, was in charge of gathering community input, and presented the process and the results. She said no outside consultants were used, and that the questionnaire and process were designed in-house. Of the 621 individual responses to the various methodologies employed, the majority want Trancas Field to remain a natural area.
Three community workshops were held. The first workshop, with 20 teen/ youth participants, favored an outdoor pool, a skate park, a bike pump track and an adventure facility. At the second workshop, held at the Malibu West Beach Club, most of the 96 participants favored either preserving the space and leaving the project area untouched or building a skate park. The third workshop, held at Malibu City Hall with 55 people attending, got results similar to the second workshop.
Turnout to meetings about the field was low, especially turnout among those with the highest stake in the development of the land.
Riesgo said more than 90 people were invited to attend one of two “stakeholder focus group meetings,” which she defined as people in various homeowners associations near Trancas Field. A total of only 10 people showed up at these meetings, to the disappointment of the department and the commission, although it was pointed out that they unintentionally excluded at least one adjacent homeowners group entirely. The input from these meetings was also to leave the field in a natural state — preserve and rehabilitate the open space and create seating areas, natural shade, vista points, a butterfly garden, outdoor educational opportunities for children, and native and demonstration gardens.
An online questionnaire was posted for two months on the city website listing various park amenities like trails, facilities/buildings, athletic fields and athletic courts. Participants ranked their preferences and could also write in their own ideas. The City received 446 responses with two-thirds coming from residents near Trancas Field and Point Dume. Fifty-six percent of the respondents wanted the area to remain as open space and 40 percent liked the idea of trails. Residents also rated their concerns: disturbing the natural habitat (62 percent), increased traffic (56 percent) and adequate parking (49 percent).