‘Builders Exemption’ And More Apts May Be Heading Towards A Coastal City Near You

The California Legislature may require coastal cities like Malibu to add apartments and condos … lots of them.

For several months … Malibu planning commissioners have been saying they are confidant that Malibu will not have to follow those new state laws that are requiring cities like Santa Monica to to allow dense development of residential apartments and condos.

Malibu has rested on the fact that our city is also governed by a coastal commission approved LCP … which prohibits new apartment buildings or condos in most of Malibu.

But that exemption may get eliminated by the State Legislature.

A state Senator from San Francisco … Scott Weiner … has introduced a bill that will plug that coastal loophole.

Backed by housing advocates …. Weiner’s bill extend and expand a key “builder’s remedy” provision …. Which has been used in Santa Monica to ramrod multistory large apartment buildings through the city permit process.

Weiner was the author of SB 35 six years ago,

SB 35 allows developers to bypass local zoning laws if a City fails to meet its State housing plan requirements.

His new bill would expand SB 35 to nearly all cities, including those in the coastal zone.

The new streamlined permit laws are called “good government measures” by Weiner … which accelerate home construction” by allowing developers to  bypass what he called hyper-politicized, chaotic process that can take years and lead to litigation.”

Brian Hamlin, CEO of California YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard), called SB 35 “one of the most powerful pro-housing laws of modern California history,” according to coverage of the press conference, as reported in the SM Mirror.

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Parking Jams Continue At Point Dume’s Point, Planning Commission To Discuss

The beauty of the yellow coreopsis flowers and Instagram continue to clog streets on Point Dume.

Volunteers On Patrol members wrote 88 parking tickets over the first weekend of march… but every day brings another crowd of people … 

Dozens of cars … parking on the sidewalk.

The city has ordered plastic candlesticks to glue onto the sidewalk timbers … but those are on back order and have not arrived yet.

California State Parks has been honoring its obligation to put a Park Ranger at the park entrance on some days.

That ranger shoos people away.

The renewed attention follows a city Public Safety Commission meeting four weeks ago … when resident complaints boiled over.

Ideas including placing signs on Dume Drive or maybe even PCH .,.. pointing visitors down to the parking lot accessed via Westward Beach Road.

That parking lot is often full … 

That commission will meet again next Wednesday … to review what has been done so far … and to brain storm what else can be done in the future.

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OK, Now We Have A Sheriff’s Station. How Much To Staff It?

Be careful what you wish for … because the county will charge for it.

That may be the lesson for Malibu … as the L A County sheriff’s office is about to open a substation in Malibu.

Or … should we say … reopen a substation in Malibu.

Our isolated area always had a sheriff’s station until just over 20 years ago … when county supervisor Zev Yaroslavlsky and County sheriff Lee Baca got into a fight over the sheriff’s budget.

Yaroslavsky cut the sheriff’s budget … and Baca told reporters he would close the Malibu station to put heat on the supervisor.

That was 22 years ago … and now … Malibu taxpayers have built a new sheriff’s station.

The idea is that deputies will face a lot of time by being able to report for work here in Malibu … rather than driving a half hour or more back and forth from the Lost Hills station in calabash.s

There’s a small jail at the new Malibu substation … that would save money too. 

But the county is going too charge Malibu to staff the new substation … and that may mean a substantial increase in law enforcement costs billed to the city’s taxpayers.

Unless Malibu ponies up more money … residents would still be required to go to the Lost Hills Station for all sheriff’s in-station services. 

In addition to adding staff for a public counter, there are other options to consider as well, including:

Maybe a dedicated Mental health Team to handle individuals experiencing mental health difficulties.

Staffing the jail would allow deputies to stay in Malibu and reduce driving time after an arrest but would significantly increase the cost of the contract. 

Maybe adding one or more Community Service Assistants to the contract would enhance the enforcement of parking restrictions. 

The Public Safety Commission will start this discussion at its meeting Wednesday afternoon.

Final decisions … of course … will be up to the city council. 

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Malibu’s Slight Crime Rate Up A Little, Down A Little

Monthly crime statistics for Malibu show no major trends.

Overall serious crime shows an uptake in a few areas … but with the small amount of crime overall in Malibu … a small increase shows up as a large percentage.

For example … in the first two months of last year there were five assaults reported ion Malibu.

This year … ten.

Residential burglaries have hovered at five … three and seven over the past three years … this year … six.

Burglaries from locked vehicles … down from 22 to 17.

Burglaries from unlocked vehicles …. Up from 5 to 9.

Add it all up … and the number of serious crimes in the first three months of this year is 74 … 5 less than last year … 10 more than the year before. 

241 speeding tickets were written in Malibu in February …  71 of those were for idiot speeding – going faster than 65 miles an hour.

Tihe fire department reports a quiet month.

Nine small fires … most of them people burning trash or driftwood.

One sheared fire hydrant.

Two car fires.

109 sick people … 71 of them taken by ambulance to a hospital.

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SMMUSD Has 1.4 Million Square Feet Of Roofs, And Lots Of Them Leak

The Santa Monica Malibu school district has leaky school roofs … and the district is going to have to spend 5.2 million dollars this year to fix them.

Most of the leaks are at older school campuses in Santa Monica… and this does ntio include the ongoing mess at one elementary school in Ocean Park … which was closed last year due to extensive water damage.

The district sent out a letter yesterday … explaining that they have 576 roofs and nearly 1.4 million square feet of roofing to take care of.

Two percent of those roofs need replacement,.

Another 7.4% need repair and restoration. 

The district’s facilities manager … Carey Upton … said in the letter that critical roof repairs are in progress or being scheduled. 

Some work will be done over spring break. 

In major cases, roof repair or full replacement will be scheduled for the summer break to minimize disruption during school

The total bill will be about $5.2 million dollars .

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SMMUSD Board Adds ‘Divorcing Malibu’ To List Of Things The New Super Must Handle

Removing Malibu from the Santa Monica school district has made the list of priorities as the board of education seeks to hire a new principal.

It’s an unusual step … but then again … a school district divorce is a most-unusual thing in California. 

The school board will meet this afternoon … to approve a list of qualities it wants to see in the next school superintendent.

And on the proposed list … the normal stuff about understanding educational needs in a diverse society … bond issues … team building … et cetera. 

Also … hiring someone who will recognize the implications of Malibu becoming its own district … and work with the Board and staff to plan effectively for that transition.

Former Malibu High school principal Mark Kelly is currently the interim Santa Monica-Malibu superintendent … during the headhunter search for a new superintendent. 

 

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Good News!  City Of LA To Make Changes To PCH At Chautauqua.  Bad News!  City Of LA To Make Changes To PCH At Chautauqua

The City of Los Angeles is about to make two major changes at the most-troublesome intersection on PCH … 

We’re talking about the dual traffic lights on Pacific Coast Highway at Entrada … Channel and Chatauqua … an intersection laid out in the 1920s that makes as much sense as the plot line in a Marx Brothers movie. 

A Santa Monica newspaper is reporting that Caltrans has approved a change to the PCH traffic heading towards Malibu … a change suggested by the City of LA Transportation Department.

L A wants to reduce the number of lanes for cars turning right from PCH onto Chautauqua Boulevard.

Right now … there are right two turn lanes to allow traffic to turn from PCH onto Chautauqua.

That second right turn lane is also the number three lanes for straight ahead traffic.

That makes in the number three lane … heading to Malibu … slow down.

L A thinks allowing only one lane to turn uo Chautauqua will improve traffic flow on PCH.

Makes sense … right???

Maybe.   

All those cars making right turns onto Chautauqua will now have to get in the turn lane way back at the gas station. 

And that traffic load will back up onto PCH … as the intersection up ahead will be able to handle fewer cars heading to Chautauqua. 

Of course … the city of LA and Caltrans traffic engineers have this all thought out.

Right?

The overhead signs and striping will be changed at some point soon.