Sweetwater Road Fracas Continues

• Serra HOA Appeals Planning Decision to City Council

BY BILL KOENEKER

In an attempt to prohibit a mountaintop road being built from Piuma Road through Sweetwater Mesa to Serra Road to Pacific Coast Highway, the Malibu Planning Commission last week approved a private access road for land on Sweetwater Mesa, but added a condition accepted by the applicant requiring easements going north of the five-lot project to be extinguished.
The complicated legalistic approach was taken after numerous homeowners from the Serra Retreat neighborhood urged the commission to not grant approval for any project that would enable vehicles to travel from Piuma Road onto their private roads.
However, the Serra Canyon Property Owners Association has appealed the commission’s decision and wants the city council to weigh in on the matter.
The highly controversial project was being heard again because the commission was asked to approve a coastal permit for the construction of a 20-feet-wide, 1669-foot-long private access road located northeast of Sweetwater Mesa Road, including variances to allow grading in excess of 1000 cubic yards, retaining walls exceeding six feet in height and building on slopes greater than two-and-a-half to one.
Commissioners were told once again by the same land use consultant, who indicated the property was under different ownership, that the owner wanted to build a house for himself on one of the lots and the others would be developed, or sold. The house lots are outside the city boundaries, but the access road is in the city.
The project has been wending its way through the approval process for the last eight years under different ownerships and the city was ultimately taken to court when it tried to deny the application. The court ruled that there was no credible evidence supporting the supposition that anyone north of the proposed project has any easement over the property that would allow them to travel the road down to PCH.
Some Serra Retreat residents and Sweetwater Mesa Road homeowners had been riled up by handouts from Jim Smith, who lives on Sweetwater Mesa Road, that the applicant had obtained an agreement from the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District for a pipeline and water that would require a service road and easement from Piuma Road.
Don Schmitz and the landowner’s attorney, Stanley Lamport,vigorously insisted no road was possible to the north. “It is an easement for a water line. But we can’t build a road. We have a fixed easement. That is why there are special circumstances,” said Schmitz, who said the owner is a member of the Sweetwater Mesa Homeowners Association. “We have a right to access the road to PCH,” he added.
Commissioner Jeff Jennings asked Lamport questions about easements, and, after a considerable amount of time, and after Lamport said he discussed the matter with his client in Georgia, the applicants agreed to the condition.
Ed Gillespie, who was chairing the meeting since both Commissioner Joan House and Chair Regan Schaar were absent, said he too would vote for a condition to make sure a road to the north would “never, never happen.”
Jennings said the easement provision of the resolution would be recorded against all five properties and show up in the title report. Mazza voted against the resolution, but did not elaborate on his dissenting vote.
Serra Property Owners Association attorney Fred Gaines unsuccessfully argued the commission could not make the findings for the required approvals and insisted the proposal needed an Environmental Impact Report.
STORMWATER TREATMENT
By unanimous vote, the planning commission approved an application to permit the demolition of the concrete pad and related improvements of a temporary pilot water runoff treatment facility and allow construction of a new, permanent water runoff treatment plant.
The facility, which will treat flows from Ramirez Creek, is located at the creek outfall in the Paradise Cove parking lot.
The purpose of the project, according to city planners, is to reduce the bacteria levels of the creek water. The new facility was been custom designed for the site, with the capacity to treat all dry weather and most winter wet weather flows.
Bo Bowman, project manager, said the city has learned quite a bit from the treatment facility at Marie Canyon built by the county, which failed after the fire-ravaged area dumped more water and debris into the facility than the unit could handle.
The new treatment unit will use settling to remove sediment and debris prior to motile-media filtration and ultraviolet light to remove finer particles and sterilize potentially infectious organisms in the influent. The treatment flow capacity for sediment removal will be 3600 gallons per minute and will be 900 gallons per minute for filtration and ultraviolet disinfection. The plant is designed to treat multiple pollutants. It also has the potential to be upgraded in the future as needed.
A masonry enclosure eight-to-12-feet high will be constructed around the tanks and equipment to secure them from vandalism, protect them from the 100-year creek flows and to reduce their visual impact on scenic resources.
The treated creek water will be discharged into the ocean adjacent to the existing culverts, in a manner that ensures that no scouring will occur, according to planners.