California Coastal Commission Says Malibu Beach Access Commitment Must Be Kept

• Promontory Stairways Ordered Built for Public Use

BY HANS LAETZ

The owners of a palatial blufftop estate above El Matador beach have to build two public staircases—up one side of a promontory and back down the other—to fulfill a beach access promise made by a previous owner, the California Coastal Commission ruled Monday.

Lawyers for the mansion owners said it would cost more than $1 million and require a barge to bring in heavy equipment to fulfill that public obligation.

Meeting in San Luis Obispo, the commission unanimously rejected a request from Graham and Brenda Revell to be allowed to get out of a deal made 27 years ago to provide the public a footway over a small headland that juts out into the water and blocks access between El Matador and El Pescador state beaches.

Attorney Alan Block said his clients should be excused from the obligation to provide access across their land because the ocean has eroded a pair of sea caves under the headlands, allowing people to stoop and crawl between the two public beaches, except during high tides.

Block said the expense of building two stairways and a path across the headlands is exorbitant. “Our experts told us we would have to barge in the heavy equipment to build this stairway,” he said, “and it would be impossible to dock the barge at this location.”

The house, at 32340 Pacific Coast Highway, is set back from the headland, which abruptly sticks out and blocks the sand just west of El Matador. Cranes and backhoes cannot be lowered to the site from above, and the bottom of the staircases would frequently be awash in high tide waves, Block said.

The attorney argued that the 1980 deal was to provide public access between the two beaches – not necessarily by constructing the staircase—and that the forces of nature had taken care of things by creating the two caves.

That argument gained no sympathy whatsoever from the commission staff, the commissioners, or beach access advocates.

Access For All director Steve Hoye pointed out that the Revells had full knowledge of the fact that the previous owner had been given a valuable concession by the state in exchange for his promise to build the two stairways.

“We gave away a vertical access way to get these two stairways, we gave a valuable gold asset and in return we got this deal from the homeowner,” Hoye testified. “But the previous owner not only built himself a private stairway, he put razor wire on it, he planted grass on the headland, and put out two lawn chairs on the public land.

“This was all known when Mr. Revell bought this property,” Hoye continued. “And it’s not just the access way along the beaches, it is also a question of the people of the state of California getting to the top of this promontory to see the beautiful vista.”

Commissioner Dan Secord noted that the Revells did not offer the people of California anything in exchange for being excused from the deal. “The disclosure of the obligation was properly made, the condition was filed and recorded, and I don’t see how there is any wiggle room.”

Commission executive director Peter Douglas left open the door for more negotiations when he said the applicants are always welcome to come up with some sort of acceptable alternate access plan.

Commissioners noted that one of the caves is four feet high, and the other one awash with surf except at very low tides. And they agreed with a staff report that said property owners cannot flaunt a promise for 27 years and then claim the commitment is too expensive or impractical to honor.

In other action, the commission formally ended a battle with entertainment mogul David Geffen over public access next to his Carbon Beach house. The commission formally accepted a plan worked out by Access For All, a public beach advocacy group, and the famed producer.

Geffen has been allowed to keep a small stairway on public land to the beach, and the public was given permanent rights to use an access way to the beach next to his house, at 22126 PCH.

Access for All’s Hoye praised Geffen at the commission meeting: “Mr. Geffen has been a pleasure to work with, and he did the right thing,” Hoye said.

Hoye’s group opened the access way two years ago.