County OKs Local Coastal Program

• Document Will Be Forwarded to Supervisors

BY BILL KOENEKER

Without comment or discussion, the Los Angeles County Planning Commission recommended approval of the county’s proposed Local Coastal Program at it’s meeting last week.

“They voted 5-0 to approve as presented and directed it to be transferred to the Board [of Supervisors] for consideration,” said Gina Natoli, the acting section head of the regional planning department, who has headed up the LCP process.

The planning department spokesperson said there were three public speakers on the consent item, but no discussion or comment from the planning panel, which had previously heard the matter at two other separate public hearings.

The commission had met previously and then again in January to consider the LCP and voted to put the matter on last week’s consent calendar.

“Now we need to make all of the changes the planning commission directed us to make,” added Natoli, who said she did not know when the board would take up the LCP document.

The county adopted the Malibu Land Use Plan for the Santa Monica Mountains, which was certified by the California Coastal Commission in 1986. An implementation program was never adopted and the coastal agency continues to take responsibility for issuing coastal permits. To achieve a complete LCP, county planners prepared a draft plan and put together an implementation program.

After the board considers the matter, the Coastal Commission will subsequently consider the document for certification.

Natoli said other issues that were still under consideration by the commission were included in the final vote, such as prohibiting biking on non-designated trails, refining the definition of agriculture, not designating the Piuma area as a significant watershed and prohibiting the hardscaping of streams.

Additionally, planners brought up several other issues that had arisen during public testimony and those too were incorporated into the LCP.

“Some of those were clarifications and didn’t require language,” added Natoli, who said all seven were added to the LCP by direction of the commission.

The planner said it is still her hope that the document would get to the Coastal Commission by the end of the year, but didn’t expect the panel to consider it until next year.