City Council Stalls on Buying West End Land

BY BILL KOENEKER

The Malibu City Council, on a 4-1 vote with Councilmember Andy Stern dissenting, didn’t rule out acquiring a 9.8-acre site currently for sale near the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Heathercliff Road. but didn’t indicate it wants to take action on a possible purchase.
A majority of the council turned down a motion by Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich’s to move ahead with purchase of the Point Dume parcel on the market for $4.2 million.
Stern said he is adamantly opposed to studying, or talking about acquiring the vacant acreage, let alone considering its purchase. “It is the wrong place. It is zoned residential. Uses would light up the night sky. It would wreck it for Bonsall [Drive]. It would be a misplaced use of funds,” he said.
Councilmember Sharon Barovsky said she was unwilling to commit funds for the purchase unless the council could come up with a specific use for the land.
“I hear open space, I hear about library, I hear people say they don’t want anything built there,” she said. “I can’t support it in these economic times, especially if we don’t do anything about it.”
The mayor and Councilmember Jefferson Wagner urged the majority to think in terms of the future, with the most important thing being acquiring the land at a fair market, affordable price, and deciding what to do later.
At a previous meeting, the council created a 12-member blue ribbon committee, which conducted public hearings and decided to issue the council a spreadsheet listing the potential uses of the property. The committee rated the impacts in regard to the environment, lights, noise, septic, traffic and water and forwarded the spreadsheet to the council. The committee insisted the order of uses on the list did not reflect a committee recommendation.
Some council members expressed impatience with the blue ribbon committee’s work. “I am disappointed it did not come back with information from the committee. I talked to committee members. I am glad the city manager talked to committee members,” added Barovsky. “Six of the 12 recommended not buying it. The others wanted it as open space.”
Sibert had the same criticism of the committee and said he thought months ago he would have been more amenable, but the current economic woes have changed his viewpoint tremendously. Sibert said he was interested in going forward with negotiations, but not for a purchase.
A heated exchange erupted between the mayor and Barovsky when she insisted a determination of use was paramount.
The mayor said visitor serving would be welcomed by the California Coastal Commission, to which Barovsky replied, “Do you want a hotel there?”
Conley Ulich shot back, “For the record, I do not want a hotel there. Be cordial.”
The council never addressed the staff information about economic feasibility.
The staff reported about what seems feasible from a financial viewpoint, explaining the municipality has money saved up for a city hall, and that forgoing the lease payments it currently makes on city hall offices could be used to pay off building a new city hall.
The staff report also indicated there was additional funding that could be used for a library from money owed to the city from the county library system.
The other options, such as a teen center, emergency operations center, or a sheriff’s sub-station are packaged with no money, no set-aside funds, or no form of monthly revenue stream, making those options seem much less feasible.