SMMC Board Approves Acquisition of Property for Alternate Ramirez Route

• Action Is Contingent on Coastal Commission’s OK

BY BILL KOENEKER

The board of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy voted this week to acquire a Ramirez Canyon property that is critical to building an access road to Ramirez Canyon Park where the SMMC is headquartered if the staff of the California Coastal Commission gives a green light to the project without extensive environmental mitigation.

SMMC executive director Joe Edmiston, whose organization currently has pending before the City of Malibu a parks and trails plan that involves expanded activities at the Ramirez Canyon Park, explained that the board agreed that the project to acquire three legal lots for $7.5 million and another $1.5 million to build the road from Kanan Dume Road to the canyon park is only viable if the Coastal Commission staff recommends the Conservancy can resell the previously graded pads rather than mitigate and restore them for the access road that would be built through an Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area.

The matter of the park and trails plan in the form of a Local Coastal Program amendment is scheduled to go before the Malibu City Council on Wednesday, Dec. 5.

The SMMC board, which includes the head of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the superintendent for State Parks and Coastal Commissioner Sara Wan, agreed to go forward with submitting the LCPA to the city.

The access road has become a key element in the park and trails plan, which includes overnight camping in several mid-Malibu canyons and in western Malibu at Charmlee Wilderness Park.

The plan includes expanded activities for SMMC fundraising at Ramirez Canyon Park that neighbors find objectionable and have previously litigated.

While the emphasis and adrenaline has been focused primarily on overnight camping, the crux of the negotiations between the city and the Conservancy appear to be on what municipal officials will allow in Ramirez.

The matter was previously discussed by the council, when members expressed an interest in finding an “incentive” for the SMMC to build the road by allowing more activities if the road gets built.

Edmiston said he has not talked to the council during the interim. He indicated he did talk to the city attorney. “She told me things are not as bleak as I might think they are,” he added.

In various public pronouncements in the press in the last week, city council members have seemingly kept up a resolve to allow the overnight camping despite the recent fire in Corral Canyon, where most of the campsites are planned and an ever-growing emotional clamor for no camping.

The SMMC director noted the talks between the staffs of the Conservancy and the coastal agency have moved to a senior level, and negotiations between the property owner and the SMMC were continuing.

Asked if there might be some inclination to put off the matter pending before the city, Edmiston said, “There was a motion to pull back the proposal. Nobody wanted to do that. The board wanted to go forward with the proposal,” he added.

Without saying he regretted it, Edmiston said his candor at a workshop about the ongoing negotiations between the land owner and the conservancy about the alternate access road was used against him in the negotiations between city officials over the LCPA.

The executive director acknowledged the Conservancy had compromised on overnight camping issues by limiting the number of campsites and scaling back other activities.

He also called the idea of limiting campers to no kind of camping equipment such as propane stoves a “punitive measure” and would hold the line at least for propane stoves. Edmiston had already told the council he would agree to no campfires, no smoking and no white gas stoves.

Many nervous residents and fire victims have called for not only limiting camping activities, but no camping whatsoever, saying it should stay out of the mountains.

However, Mayor Jeff Jennings on Monday night said that was not possible because of the policies of the LCP.

“People are confused about it. Camping is now permitted in every park project in the City of Malibu. That is a fact. Not an opinion. Because camping is a permitted use, the city is powerless to prohibit government agencies. We cannot deny them. If you accept those two items, and you have another solution call me,” added Jennings, who put the onus on Edmiston.

“There is a person who can stop camping in the Santa Monica Mountains. He is the guy. He started the idea. Joe is the guy. Go see Joe.”