Opposition Comes to the Fore After Scoping Session for Trancas Park

BY BILL KOENEKER

While panelists and the public at the City of Malibu’s Parks and Recreation Commission meeting last week talked about designs and improvements for a proposed Trancas Canyon Park, neighbors were quietly circulating a letter opposing any park in the west end neighborhood.

An unsigned letter circulated in the Trancas Highlands area over the weekend that urges local residents to send written opposition to the formal zone change planned for the 13.5-acre property.

The letter states, “During the hot summer months...individuals from outside the community in an open, over-crowded picnic area would bring noise, littering, loitering, increased crime, such as vandalism, theft and graffiti, along with other public nuisances to our present peaceful community.”

Readers are asked to sign the form letter and mail it to the City of Malibu by May 15.

Some Trancas Highlands homeowners opposed the proposal when the city council first approved the park four years ago.

The council recently vowed to find money to fund the $2.5 million shortfall to finance the $3 million cost of improvements.

The commission meeting served as a public scoping session to aid planners with the environmental analysis to be considered during preparation of a draft EIR.

The city also recently posted a notice for an EIR consultant that describes the project as including a multi-use field of about 450 feet by 200 feet, roughly the size of a standard soccer field.

Another one-acre site, a grassy pad on the northern portion of the property overlooking the sports fields, would be designated as a dog park and picnic area.

Plans also include a restroom building and small storage and staff office building located adjacent to the sport field. Up to 93 parking spaces, including 11-wheelchair accessible spaces, would be provided in the upper and lower parking areas, according to the EIR notice. Park hours would be 8 a.m. to sunset.

When park plans were first approved, some neighbors near the site objected because the ingress and egress for the park was planned on a steep portion of Trancas Canyon Road, and the fields are perceived as too close to the Malibu West subdivision.

Those opponents appeared to be mollified when city officials and park proponents promised the field would only be used for practice sessions, presumably reducing the number of park visitors and offering the guarantee that no night lighting would be installed.

Despite those assurances, at last week’s commission meeting, there were suggestions that the field also be used for regulation play.

However, Highlands residents, according to the letter, are concerned that Trancas Canyon Road is their only outlet, and a fire or other disaster could inflict serious loss on the their area if emergency response includes park visitor safety. “The traffic problems and confusion for the evacuation of additional cars from the 93 car parking areas now being proposed, added to the traffic headed down from the Trancas Highlands area on the same road, would be horrendous and life threatening,” according to the anonymous letter.

As the city prepares to start the required studies, it is also attempting to deal with the zoning issues involved.

The city’s planning commission recently recommended changes to the city’s zoning law, that would allow the designation of community or pocket parks in residential areas. Those recommendations will go before the council for future consideration.

Additionally, the zoning on the property, which is currently residential, would have to be changed to accommodate park use.

Residents opposed to the park indicate they would prefer to keep the property residential.

“With the present residential zoning, it is possible to construct instead a maximum of four homes, each one on approximately three acres,” the letter states.

Another stumbling block has been the lack of funding for the park improvements.

Recently, council members said they were willing to pony up dollars for the design and construction elements of the park, possibly using funds generated from an anticipated surplus of cash created by the rents from the proposed leasing arrangement of the old Malibu Lumber site as a high-end boutique shopping center.