Planning Panel Turns Down City Hall Development Deal

• Majority Votes for Smaller Project

BY BILL KOENEKER

A majority of the Malibu Planning Commission, meeting last week before a standing-room-only audience, determined that the benefits of a developer donating a city hall in exchange for a larger civic center retail/office complex were outweighed by the project’s impacts.
On a 4-1 vote, with Chair Regan Schaar dissenting, the planning panelists recommended the city council approve a 99,177-square-foot commercial office and retail package east of the library building that conforms to municipal code but offers no public amenities.
Don Schmitz, the land use consultant who sheparded the La Paz application through the approval process for the last eight years said, “I respectfully disagree with the commission. There are different development standards for a city hall and they are appropriate, just as we have different development standards for overlay districts. I still think a city hall project would be a good project.”
The two project versions were heard simultaneously. In a series of votes, the commission recommended denial of a development agreement that includes a proposal for the construction of a 112,058-square-foot commercial shopping center that included a 20,000-square-foot city hall.
“I have a lot of problems with the city hall project,” said Commissioner Joan House. “It takes away more than it offers.”
House cited traffic problems noted in the Environmental Impact Report and the loss of the amount of landscaping and open space if the larger project with the donated city hall is approved.
House noted the plans went the wrong direction for the city since so many variances and amendments would be required in order to obtain the public benefits.
“If city hall breaks all the rules, that is not a good example,” she added. “I would hate the city hall to be [the reason] for all of the legislative requests.”
Schaar said she could support neither proposal, asserting that a piecemeal approach to developing the civic center is flawed and that the municipality should have a specific plan for the area.
“For the last four years, I kept saying, why don’t we have a civic center specific plan? How is this going to impact future projects?” she asked.
Schaar, who listened to the history of how the city completed a specific plan that was turned down by a previous council, said nevertheless she could not approve either project because there were too many unknowns.
The planning chair, who along with the other commissioners heard conflicting expert testimony and opinion about traffic impacts and wastewater disposal, said a specific plan or some kind of overall plan could have helped address such issues.
“If we had a specific plan, maybe it would have tied in with the Legacy Park plans,” she added.
Schaar said she did not see the pressing need for a city hall at this time and said she seriously doubted the retail space provided by the project would in any way help to keep or bring mom and pop stores. “They will be flagship stores. We will still be going over the hill,” she said, adding she would have been more interested if there had been some other kind of public amenity offered.
Commissioner John Sibert, who is running for city council, said he shared some of the same concerns as House.
“It is great to have a city hall. The problem is this city hall is shoe-horned into this,” he said.
Sibert, who said he was concerned about traffic, said he had to grudgingly believe the EIR’s traffic expert, who said the terrible conditions of the surrounding intersections were already so bad, that the incremental addition of traffic from the shopping center would not make things any worse than they already are. “I would vote to recommend the .15 FAR project,” he added.
Both Commissioners Carol Randall and Les Moss, who eventually voted with the majority for the smaller project, mostly talked overall about what conditions they wanted to see attached to approval.
Randall said of all the alternatives she could approve the ones before her were acceptable as opposed to a big box store.
She noted the property has been zoned commercial for years and years and that it was now the charge of the planning commission to decide what could go there. She also said she thought panelists would need to act despite there being no specific plan. “That is what the planning commission is going to be,” she said.
Moss said the panel had talked about every issue. “I like the project. It looks pretty nice,” he said, while making specific recommendations such as 24/7 security, fencing to separate the project from the Malibu Knolls, no amplified music and low key lighting per the EIR. “There is no reason this should not be forwarded to the city council,” he said.
There was a wide array of public comment from those who called for a moratorium on building in the civic center to those who elicited a number of reasons why they wanted to see more development, including a wider array of restaurant choices—two 5000-square-foot eateries are planned—to the addition of retail space possibly lowering space rent for mom and pop operations.
Observers noted that the packed chambers with many public speakers sounding off was in stark contrast to the previous commission meetings and workshops were there has been a seemingly paucity of interest in the projects which have generated little controversy.