City Council Wants to Add Sewage Plant to
La Paz Center
• Majority Gives Tentative OK to
Larger Commercial Development with Conditions
Despite clear calls from environmental
groups to deny approval of La Paz, a shopping
center/office complex planned for the Civic Center, the Malibu
City Council majority this week tentatively approved a
132,000-square-foot commercial center by directing its staff to
negotiate a development agreement that calls for utilizing a
donated 2.3 acres for a municipal sewage treatment plant to
serve the entire Civic Center area.
Councilmember Jefferson Wagner was the
sole dissenting vote. After the meeting he said the project is
just too big and he wanted to see two 7000-square- foot
restaurants eliminated from the plans.
The sewage plant idea was offered by Mayor
Pamela Conley Ulich. “It struck me like a bolt of
lightning to put a wastewater plant there and put off a city
hall,” she said.
Conley Ulich was referring to the
development agreement offered by the applicant that sought
to trade a “public benefit,” 2.3 acres conveyed to
the city for the purpose of constructing a city hall and a
$500,000 cash contribution to build out a city hall, in
exchange for building a 132,058- square-foot shopping center/
office park that would include the municipal offices.
The alternative project was no development
agreement, or public benefit, for approving entitlements for a
99,117-square-foot commercial development, which was the
recommendation made by the city’s planning commission.
Conley Ulich said construction of a
wastewater system on the property might help settle the
lawsuits now facing the city over clean water issues and offer
municipal officials a way to affordably build such a plant
in the Civic Center.
But members from groups concerned with
clean water issues, including Heal the Bay and the Santa Monica
Baykeeper, were not swayed by the plant idea as part of a major
development.
Their representatives urged the city
council to issue a moratorium on all commercial building in the
Civic Center until the issues of stormwater and wastewater
disposal were resolved for the Civic Center area as a whole.
Even though council members were made
keenly aware of the environmental community’s viewpoint,
it remained unclear what the applicant and his army of land use
consultants, attorneys and experts thought about the
mayor’s proposal that seemed to gather council consensus
as the lengthy meeting wore on.
In a somewhat unusual approach, City
Attorney Christi Hogin insisted the council not
approach the applicant’s consultant Don Schmitz
during the meeting for any kind of feedback.
After the meeting, Schmitz, his attorney
and the owner of the site declined to comment publicly about
the council decision.
Both the mayor and Hogin seemed to keep an
open mind about what might be acceptable if the applicants
turned down the wastewater proposal.
“The use of the parcel is something
to negotiate. They may not accept it. We can take it back to
the developer,” said Hogin.
Conley Ulich said though the council would
be giving up a city hall for another municipal use, those other
uses might include selling the parcel, a teen or senior center,
or setting up another retail operation like the Malibu
Lumber yard shopping center.
Councilmember Sharon Barovsky said she
warmed up to the idea after hearing testimony that lead her to
believe many groups and agencies were accusing the city of not
being serious about wastewater issues in the Civic Center.
“Now, if we have two acres, we could
use it for wastewater to prove how serious we are. The
Legacy Park is going to do stormwater and we can
address it right now,” added Barovsky.
The council heard a litany of testimony,
including staff members of the Regional Water Quality Control
Board, various other experts and Malibu residents, some who
opposed and others who supported the project.
RWQCB staffer Elizabeth Erickson told the
council the EIR had some problems not addressed in the
city’s responses because there was no quantifiable data
about what would take place during a giant storm event.
She said plans for La Paz’s
stormwater and wastewater described as no net discharge
systems were proposals headed in the right direction, but the
city should ever be mindful of the cumulative impacts of
groundwater discharge.
Malibu resident Marshall Thompson said he
was originally came to like it and now supported it. “It
seems like a terrific deal,” he said. “Now is the
time to give the developer the OK.”
Other residents, including as Dennis Torres
and Rick Margolis also offered support, suggesting more retail
and office space would drive down the rents thereby helping mom
and pop operations. Malibu Chamber of Commerce head Rebecca
Evans said the same thing.
Alan Block, who represents the
Gustavson family who built a home near the then vacant La
Paz land decades ago, cited several objections about procedure
in the city’s handling of the project application
process, said there were flaws in the EIR and told the council
the family was still unable to reach an agreement with the
developer over siting of the commercial development so close to
the residential neighborhood.
Resident Steve Uhring cited what he said
were flaws in the traffic study. “The traffic counts
could be undercounted by 50 percent,” he said
Expressing concern about wastewater
processes was longtime local engineer Don Michael, as well as
Sally Benjamin, a representative for the Malibu Township
Council.
