Proposed Ban on Retail Formula Not Dead Yet

BY BILL KOENEKER

The Malibu City Council’s Zoning Ordinance Revisions and Code Enforcement Subcommittee, or ZORACES, met last week to consider whether the municipality should draft a ban on chain stores or what officials call a retail formula ordinance.
The council subcommittee members, Councilmembers John Sibert and Jefferson Wagner were met by many of the shopping center owners or their representatives, real estate brokers and other critics, who have repeatedly asked the city to retire the proposal since they believe it is not needed and will not do what it is proposed to do.
For years, a proposed ban on franchise type retail outlets has been floating around, after a recommendation by Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich, who drafted the language of the proposed measure.
The subcommittee last week, agreed to send the proposal back to staff to possibly rework the law and to consider if there are methods of enforcing current zoning laws.
The proposal reiterated by Conley Ulich is based on a court-tested law that proponents say would eliminate many chains such as Burger King or other like franchises from easily descending on the Malibu coast.
However, shopping center owners and other critics repeated that the market in Malibu precludes such kinds of low rent franchises with high-end boutiques and other stores such as Gucci or others that could easily end run around any such ordinance because of the uniqueness of each of these kinds of boutiques.
Subcommittee members were reportedly unwilling to kill the proposed ordinance in subcommittee. “That is not what we were charged with,” said Sibert.
The council had reconsidered the matter at a July 27, 2009 meeting, when a majority of the council determined that the issue should not be placed on the April 2010 ballot for voter consideration, but rather be shipped over to ZORACES.
The matter had come before the council three years ago when it first heard about the issue.
It is not the first time the council has wanted ZORACES to consider the matter. In 2007 the council directed the panel to review a proposed ordinance to narrow the scope of the program prior to initiating a new law.
ZORACES developed recommendations for the council's consideration.
By 2008, the council adopted a resolution and all the other necessary documents needed for enacting such a law.
Again it went back to ZORACES which reviewed the item and public input. The staff requested input on ordinance language and guidelines prior to the preparation of a draft ordinance for planning commission and city council consideration, according to a staff report.
However, based on several comments of the subcommittee and members of the public, ZORACES recommended the issue of whether or not to draft an ordinance be sent back to the city council for consideration for placement on the April 2010 ballot, according to a staff report.