City officials are looking to streamline the process of applications for subdivision.

By Sylvie Belmond/Staff Writer

With fewer and fewer buildable lots left in Malibu, and an interim zoning ordinance originally designed to block or slow down any further development, the Malibu City Council has decided to take another look at subdivision rules.

Last year, the council turned down actor Stacey Keach’s request to split a 5.95 parcel of land into two lots, because one of the lots would have been slightly undersized and on a slope faintly too steep based on the current interim zoning ordinance. The council turned Keach down, but expressed uneasiness that perhaps some of the ordinances were hyper-technical and needed simplification.

“The council then directed planning staff to look at these rules and indicated, when reviewing Keach’s proposal, that the rules may need to be changed,” said Barry Hogan, planning director in a phone interview.

The council proposed changes, which went before the Planning Commission at last week’s meeting for its input. The commission will later report back to council with recommendations.

One possible change in zoning rules would allow property owners to build on parcels of land with slopes at a slightly steeper angle, a 5 percent difference from the current ordinance.

But changes, meant to simplify the subdivision process without eliminating important requirements, do not come without opposition. Critics are concerned the amendments will open the door to more development.

The Planning Commission, as it scrutinized the proposed changes last week, postponed making recommendations until commissioners know how many lots would be affected by any changes.

“We continued these items because we wanted more information about the overall effect that these changes would have,” said Ed Lipnick, commission chair.

Planning commissioner Richard Carrigan was hesitant about the discussed changes.

“I’m not sure at this point how I feel about these proposals,” said Carrigan, who wants more analysis to ensure that relaxing the subdivision and slope density standards will not lead to excessive, additional development.

“It will lead to more development but the question is, will it lead to much more?” he asked.

The slope density change would be the first amendment of the Land Use Element plan in 2001.

Since the city’s incorporation and the General Plan’s establishment, only one property owner, Keach, came to the commission requesting a subdivision. If the council approved the amendment, the new rules may allow Keach to apply for a new parcel map, said planning director Barry Hogan.

The changes staff proposed would revise the land-use implementation of slope density and hillside management and amend property development and design standards that provide slope density requirements for rural residential properties of 1 acre, 2 acres and 5 acres.

The proposed modifications include the application of slope averaging to 15 percent rather than 10 percent.

Currently, the formula is contained in the subdivision ordinance. The changes would place the revised formulas in the zoning ordinance instead, said Hogan.

“This only applies when you are going to divide land,” he said.

The changes would exempt rural residential 10-acre and 20-acre lots from the requirements of slope density if they were being subdivided, because those lots are already large, concluded Hogan.

“That’s kind of a house keeping thing,” said Ken Kearsley, councilmenber. “When we became a city, we adopted all these codes and now it’s time to go back and streamline.

“This goes back a long way,” Kearsley explained. “It’s not because of any given case. This is the beginning of an attempt by the council to make the interim zoning code a more permanent zoning code.”

The safety of septic systems on which Malibu relies will be put to the test by a new plan recently approved by the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project.

The work plan, prepared for the city by Stone Environmental, Inc., will assess risks associated with septic systems and on-site wastewater treatment plants in the coastal zone.

The city is strongly committed to on-site treatment over the huge, centrally located sewage facilities, such as Hyperion, favored by Los Angeles County officials. Some say Malibu incorporated primarily to thwart impending county installation of sewers, which residents feared would have opened the way for more intense development.

Previous city councils have opposed various proposed studies that would have pinpointed failing systems, fearing that some property owners might be unfairly targeted and could be held liable for damages from pollution.

While some residents have feared mandatory testing, others have already installed newly designed secondary treatment systems willingly, because they say they are concerned about the environment. Although more expensive initially than the old systems approved by the county, these on-site treatment plants may prove to be cost effective in the long run by eliminating frequent pumping and relocation of leach fields.

The risk assessment, which includes one year of water quality sampling in the Civic Center and areas adjacent to lower Malibu Creek and Lagoon, is expected to begin next month and be completed by April 2003.

“We’re trying to reach out to the community and get their cooperation to obtain information regarding general and specific wastewater discharge requirements,” said Vic Peterson, Malibu Environmental and Building Safety official and the project’s director.

“Placing of the monitoring wells will be directed by the contract professionals, city geologists and Stone’s field experts,” Peterson said. “We have to seek permission to place equipment on private property.”

The Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) contends it has a right to order property owners to provide this information, Peterson said. “We want to make the cure fits the disease. We’re not designing a one-size-fits-all cure for a disease that maybe doesn’t exist. If there’s a risk, we want to fix it. But we don’t want people to spend a lot of money fixing something that may not be broken. Once trouble spots are identified, we would notify the property owners and work with them on remedies.”

What has not yet been established is whether property owners are solely responsible for the cost of upgrading failing systems, or if the cost may be billed to tenants. And there has not been any mention of whether there will be financial assistance in upgrading or replacing systems.

Work will not begin until all agreements are signed by participating agencies and the city has grant funding approval.

“The City Council will have to approve a resolution to accept funding,” Peterson said. “Some of the costs of the work plan preparation were reimbursed through the department’s operating budget. The city must make a matching contribution of the entire grant fund [about $96,000] toward implementation. This money has already been budgeted.”

Hydraulic studies on groundwater in the Civic Center area were already done in conjunction with monitoring storm drains that empty into the creek and lagoon. City Engineer Rick Morgan directed that project, which resulted in ozonation treatment of runoff from storm drains.

“This was an entirely different study,” Peterson said. “However, some of the goals are the same.”

Quarterly reports – summaries of all data collected, maps and illustrations of water table configurations, solute concentrations and loading rates for surface water bodies – are to be submitted to Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project. The organization, housed in the same downtown building as the RWQCB, has state employees and some federal and state funding, but is not involved with enforcement.

“We work with all the entities in the watershed that may have an impact on the bay,” said Steve Groner, the organization’s director. “These stakeholders are the cities, the polluters, the water and sanitation districts, and environmental organizations like Heal the Bay, BayKeeper and Surfrider.” The Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation is it nonprofit fundraising arm.

The majority of ocean pollution in Santa Monica Bay has been blamed on urban runoff through the county’s storm drains: motor oil, fertilizer, pesticides, paint and animal feces all contribute to the toxic soup that causes frequent beach closures during the rainy season. It is not clear whether this new study will address the issue of breaching the sand berm to lower the water table and relieve pressure on septic systems at the edge of the lagoon. The Tapia Water Reclamation Facility, upstream in Malibu Canyon, is restricted to releasing unsold treated effluent into Malibu Creek when the sand berm is naturally breached during the winter months. (Treated effluent is usually sold for irrigation purposes).

Two informational workshops are planned, the first for September. Robert Rubin, of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Elizabeth James, of EPA Region 9 have been invited to participate.

An eyewitness report

By Arnold G. York/Publisher

The telephone circuits to New York City were jammed and it was hours before my sister, Matti Feldman, and my niece, Erika Feldman, were able to get through to tell us that they were OK. They both work in the West Village, only a mile or so from the World Trade Center. Karen and I knew they walk to work each morning from the upper Westside, and we held our breath and hoped.

No matter what we see on TV, the sheer horror of what you experience on foot, only a mile from the devastation, is qualitatively different.

Matti said it started out as a beautiful, sunny, cool, perfect New York City fall morning with a blue sky and small puffy white clouds. When they got to the West Village, people were standing in the street watching the fire in the first of the World Trade Center buildings that was hit, the North Tower, more curious than frightened, not yet aware that it was terrorism and not yet aware of the extent of damage. Then the second plane hit. There was an enormous blinding flash, and they all knew.

One of the buildings was burning with a flame that smoldered as if the top was a marshmallow at the end of a stick. Then one trade center building collapsed and people stood in the street, huddling together, staring in disbelief, listening to details on car radios, which people in stopped cars had turned up, so everyone could hear. The sun reflected off large pieces of the building as it fell. Then the second building went and people began to weep.

A steady stream of people was headed north, past Matti and Erika, running away from the fire, heading uptown. Matti described it as surreal. There were stockbrokers, maintenance people, office clerks and vagrants. They all had a similar look, because they were all covered with a layer of ash and their shoes were all white. But the worst was classes of school children, holding hands, being led from their schools to centers where frantic parents could go to pick them up.

People, total strangers, were talking and hugging each other. Perhaps Matti thought they were just happy to still be alive. Many headed to the closest hospital to help, which was Saint Vincent’s in lower Manhattan on 12th Street and 7th Avenue. Erika said there were so many volunteers offering help that there was a 2-hour wait just to volunteer. What they needed most were medical people, particularly plastic surgeons, burn specialists and nurses. They were running out of blood, but there were too many blood volunteers, so they were diverting them to other hospitals to give blood.

But strangest of all, said Erika, was the skyline, empty of those two giant buildings, which had been there since she was born, a familiar picture that had a large whole torn in it.