New City Timeline for Lumber Yard Shopping Center Opening

• Plan Is to Have Some Shops in Place for Holiday Rush

BY BILL KOENEKER

Malibu city officials this week indicated they hope the Malibu Lumber Yard shopping center, owned by the municipality and being built and operated by Richard Weintraub, will open in time for the Christmas shopping season—at least the first phase, the retail operations, with the second phase. the restaurant areas, opening sometime in early 2009.
Fulfilling that holiday wish is contingent on whether the city and the Regional Water Quality Control Board can resolve differences about who will permit the waste discharge of the center and the fate of the memo of understanding between the city and the regional board that is scheduled for possible rescinding on Nov. 13.
At its meeting next week, the city council is expected to consider several measures to curry favor with the state agency board.
The council is apparently prepared to consider fast-tracking a centralized Civic Center wastewater system by pumping more than $2.5 million into a contract with a consulting firm to plan the final design for a centralized plant for commercial properties in the Civic Center area, including preparing an Environmental Impact Report, securing a coastal permit and a RWQCB permit.
The rationale is summed up in a staff report seeking the increased amount for RMC Water and Environment which has already been paid close to $3 million for the plans that resulted in moving forward only with the stormwater treatment system.
“The final centralized wastewater treatment system design is now being scheduled to move forward. The project has trailed the stormwater project due to several reasons, including the fact that a site has not been secured for the placement of the plant. In light of recent developments with the La Paz project and direction from the council to include the procurement of a suitable site staff feels this project can move forward,” wrote Public Works Director Robert Brager, in a memo to council members.
However, at the same time, the council last week said it wanted to talk about halting wastewater studies as a cost-cutting measure in the light of the volatile economic situation.
Brager acknowledged those options in his memo, explaining the council could move forward with the contract immediately, or could wait until the lumber yard project is fully operational to obtain more revenue, although that timeline remains a question mark.
Councilmember Sharon Barovsky told her colleagues last week she wants to talk about holding in abeyance all discretionary studies for the Civic Center area until the shopping center is fully operational and more money is being pumped into city coffers. The council is scheduled to discuss that option next week.
If agreed upon, the staff could create a fund to be used for the development of wastewater projects from 50 percent of the base rent revenue.
The council could also direct the staff to begin negotiations on vacant land in the Civic Center that would be an appropriate site for the wastewater treatment plant.
If the council halts current wastewater studies, the saving would amount to $260,000, according to Administrative Services Director Reva Feldman. Essentially it would halt one study, the groundwater modeling study. That would seem to be counter-indicated by statements of the RWQCB staff, which privately and publicly talked to the city about the urgency of knowing about groundwater impacts, given the lumber yard shopping center is one of the projects next in line to discharging into the Civic Center.
According to RWCQB documents, the groundwater discharges of the shopping center might tip the scale of what is acceptable in the Civic Center and is just what the fight is all about between the city and the RWQCB. How that gets resolved is anybody’s guess until presumably Nov. 13.
Council members agreed to assign Barovsky and Councilmember John Sibert to lobby board members before the November date to bend the board members ears about what the city is willing to do to make good with the board and staff. A negotiated settlement could be reached if the city sends a clear message to the state agency.
Feldman has informed the council, in a memo, that a separate account could be funded for wastewater related studies and projects using income from the lumber yard shopping center that would equal about $462,500 per year.
The council, according to the RWCQB staff reports and memos, needs to give the staff clear direction if it indeed wants to fast-track the wastewater component.
Feldman also summed up the options the council must decide upon. “In order to complete the final design and EIR of the wastewater treatment project it is necessary that the two-acre site be identified and acquired. If directed by the council, staff will diligently pursue the availability of vacant parcels and their appropriateness to site such a facility,” Feldman added.
However, as noted by Feldman, if the La Paz development agreement proposed by the council includes a land dedication for a potential wastewater treatment facility in lieu of a city hall, then there will no longer need to be other sites for a wastewater plant.