Malibu Township Council’s appeal sets forth 20 bases for overturning Planning Commission’s approval
By Barbara Burke
Special to The Malibu Times
The Malibu City Council will soon hold a public hearing concerning an exhaustive appeal filed by the Malibu Township Council seeking review of the Planning Commission’s approval of the Malibu Inn, a project that involves construction of a new 7,693-square-foot, 20-room motel above a new subterranean parking garage across from the Pier.
The project also includes a surface parking lot, a rooftop deck with swimming pool, spa and bar area, grading, retaining walls, landscaping, a new onsite wastewater treatment system and authorization for the planning director to submit a letter of public convenience or necessity for the sale of alcohol. The project will be located at 22959 Pacific Coast Highway. Burdge and Associates Architects, Inc. / Surfrider Plaza, LLC represents applicant Alexander Hakim, who originally filed a permit request on June 11, 2018.
The Planning Commission approved the motel project on May 31, 2023. The MTC appealed to the City Council on July 27, 2023, raising 20 substantive challenges to the Commission’s project approval. On March 15, the City Council deferred consideration of the appeal, which had been slated for March 25.
The project
The proposed Malibu Inn Motel site sits across from the Malibu Pier between AviatorNation, the Chabad and its early child education center, and the Rabbi’s residence.
At the base of the proposed project is the entry lobby and reception area, together with an enclosed parking garage. The second and third levels contain the guest rooms and a commercial kitchen. The top floor contains a pool deck, elevator box, and roofed bar area.
Appellant MTC asserts 20 challenges to the commission’s project approval, beginning with its assertion that the project is not correctly zoned.
“This project is in the CV1 Zone,” MTC noted. “The CV designation provides for visitor serving uses that respect the rural character and natural environmental setting — this project does neither.”
Rural character height is limited to two stories, while this project is four stories, the MTC notes, adding, “By unallowable excessive grading into the properties’ coastal bluff, this project does not respect the natural environmental setting.”
The project’s status as a hotel or a motel
The gravamen of many of MTC’s claims center on its position that the project constitutes a hotel, not a motel, and therefore, if the project is to proceed at all, there must be a zone change to CV2, which would permit hotel use, a process that involves a Local Implementation Plan amendment.
Focusing on definitions, the MTC notes that, as defined in the city’s Local Coastal Plan’s LIP, a “motel” is a “group of attached or detached buildings containing guest rooms, some or all of which have a separate entrance leading directly from the outside of the building to automobile parking spaces conveniently located on the lot or parcel of land and does not provide accessory uses such as restaurants and meeting rooms.”
Applying that definition, the MTC argues, “This project does not meet the LIP’s definition of a motel, because none of the rooms have such separate entrances — indeed, none of the guest rooms are on the parking level.” Further, motels don’t serve alcoholic beverages or have a kitchen or food service and the applicant seeks to host meetings and functions such as weddings, bar mitzvahs, and similar gatherings. MTC also notes the property is directly adjacent to a synagogue and an early childhood education center, which violates ABC Control Act Section 23789 Rule 61.4, which permits ABC to prohibit the sale of alcohol near schools or churches.
Coastal bluff grading
MTC also asserts that the natural coastal bluff behind the proposed project will be destroyed if the project is approved because “the project will block more than one half of the coastal bluff and likely will further destabilize the bluff,” because the applicant intends to cut into the bluff significantly. MTC bolsters this argument by providing a 2014 memo written to the City Council by Adrian Hernandez, the same City of Malibu city planner who is tasked with working on this project. Hernandez’s memorandum, entitled “Local Coastal Program Interpretation No. 9,” states that “slopes that were historically created by wave action but are no longer subject to it may still be prone to erosion or stability hazard.”
Against that background, MTC sets forth the significant cut grading plan the commission approved for this project.
“According to the staff report, the 1.18 acre net lot area would undergo excavation of .77 acres — over three-quarters of an acre of coastal bluff and excavation of approximately 11,921 cubic yards of soil,” Hernandez’s memo states. That translates into more than 65 percent of the 1.18 acres being destroyed by cutting into the Coastal Bluff when the Planning Commission’s declaration approving the project says it is an admittedly unstable bluff. “No one has ever been allowed to grade a coastal bluff face,” MTC’s appeal states, claiming that the applicant has been granted a variance by the commission that is both detrimental to public interest and that also provides a special privilege, both of which are specifically proscribed by relevant city regulations.
MTC asserts that cutting the bluff could significantly compromise residences above the proposed project, and therefore, the geology of the site needs to be studied in an Environmental Impact Review. As a corollary to those arguments, the MTC also asserts that the retaining wall approved by the commission is excessively high and the building itself, when measured accurately to include the above-grade portion of the parking structure, is four stories, twice the amount allowed by the Code.
MTC bolsters its assertion by stating “the so-called 29 sub-terrain parking spaces are actually above grade — placing a berm around an above grade structure does not make it subterranean.” MTC asserts the record — and the measurements in it — are flawed and, when calculated correctly, mandate concluding “this project is 44-plus feet high at a minimum.” In support of that claim, MTC notes that an April 2020 traffic study in the record and an onsite wastewater treatment system design report both refer to a “three-level motel.”
Accordingly, the Township argues that both the height and number of stories are misrepresented and when correctly assessed they violate both the Malibu Municipal Code and the LIP.
MTC’s concerns regarding noise, wastewater treatment, setbacks and traffic
Other concerns expressed by MTC in its 37-page appeal include alleged noise violations — no sound study was performed with regard to the implications for noise affecting the Chabad’s Rabbi house, religious school, and synagogue directly east of the motel. Further, MTC notes the pool is not open to the public as required by law — see www.coastal.ca.gov/ventura/malibu-lip-final.pdf (“pool uses permitted only if available to the general public as to pools in both CV-1 and CV-2 zoned properties”).
With regard to the project’s on-site wastewater treatment center, the Township Council opines that “The applicant has not complied with the original project’s effluent flow per gallon in the water banned area — there is also another lot’s future expansion area located on the lot (referring to AviatorNation) which is not allowed. Two septic systems cannot be on the same lot.” MTC also asserts, “The septic system is far too small for the hotel and employees, especially when there is a large event, such as a wedding. This will guarantee a bad water report and cannot be mitigated.”
MTC also objects to the fact that there is zero rear setback, which, it states, “is COMPLETELY against the codes and is a privilege given SOLELY to the applicant, no other buildings along PCH have this.”
In a similar vein, MTC asserts the applicant was improperly accorded favorable treatment with regard to parking, stating, “The Malibu Beach was denied lifts for additional parking, yet this hotel was easily approved for this. The approval is inconsistent with similar applications as it permits off-site parking in excess of 300-feet walking distance.”
In short, MTC asserts that the parking situation needs to be analyzed in an EIR and that the project, as approved by the commission, will cause a loss of public parking. “The project needs to be studied in conjunction with the traffic circulation and offsite parking impacts created by the Sea View Hotel, the Malibu Beach Inn, Nobu, Soho House, Malibu Pier, The Farm Restaurants on the Pier, Malibu Ryokan, Surfrider Motel, Aviator Nation as well as Surfrider beach parking east of the Adamson house,” the appeal says. “Since this project was first proposed over 10 years ago, no EIR has been prepared, although many projects have been planned or completed in the general area which require inclusion in an EIR.”
Further, MTC asserts that a traffic study is required, noting that the area is subject to extreme gridlock, especially in the summer.
Low-cost accommodations were also not addressed adequately by the commission, according to MTC, whose argument centers on the Coastal Commission’s mandates that, when feasible, lower-cost accommodations must be provided to help the public access the coast. Instead of going through a usual cost-based analysis which sets forth rates that a hotel charges regularly and what reduced rates they will offer those needing to pay less and for how many rooms such reduced rates will be offered, the commission’s approval simply states that the applicant must pay an in-lieu fee to meet this mandated criteria.
Possible Chumash cultural resources necessitate an EIR, MTC asserts
In an email provided to The Malibu Times by MTC, Barbara Tejada, supervisor of the Cultural Resources Program for the Los Angeles District of California State Parks, states “The Malibu Inn Motel/Hotel site is likely a satellite use area of the village of Humaliwo and it would be important at the very least to have a Phase I archaeological survey and Phase II archaeological testing conducted on the property to ensure that cultural deposits are not encountered. In addition to archaeological artifacts, state law also now protects “tribal cultural resources” which can be both cultural and natural resources of significance to the tribes.
Therefore, MTC asks the city to amplify the wording of the ordinance approving this project as it fails to require work to stop if a cultural resource is found during grading, the extensive bluff excavation or any site disturbance. The current language of the ordinance only states that such work cessation shall occur if potentially culturally significant cultural resources are found during construction or during geologic testing.
“It is likely that significant cultural resources or a Chumash burial site could be found on this site,” MTC asserted, adding, “When the clock tower building two properties to the east was under construction a Chumash burial site was found and excavated.”
Overall, MTC asserts that the Planning Commission did not conduct an impartial hearing and that “given the fact that the requisite findings to support allowing this project to proceed cannot be made because of so many code violations, this decision is most obviously contrary to law.”
Readers should note that as of press time, MTC’s filed appeal has not been posted on the city’s website, but a 488-page staff pertaining to the project has been. https://www.malibucity.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/6041?fileID=45307
The Malibu Times will update readers concerning when the City Council will consider the Malibu Township Council’s appeal.