City Officials Think Zoning May Be on Their Side in Ball Fields Dispute with State Coastal Panel

• Planner Says Property Is Not Commercial Visitor-Serving

BY BILL KOENEKER

A detailed planning staff report prepared for the Malibu City Council when it considers next week how to tackle the California Coastal Commission turning down a development agreement calling for ball fields at the Winter Mesa site known locally as the Crummer property, may hold the key to how city officials can turn around the commission decision.

The city’s Local Coastal Program Amendment was turned down under the modifications made by the Coastal Commission to the city’s request to allow a 1.75 acre site for ball fields adjacent to Bluffs Park in exchange for building a five-home subdivision.

The commission scuttled the ball fields saying active recreation was not appropriate for the donated land when commercial visitor-serving property was to be rezoned, taking away a top priority zoning designation.

However, information in a city staff report asserts the commission erred because they did not zone it CV-2, but rather Planned Development, another kind of zoning designation.

The report prepared for the city council by Principal Planner Stefanie Edmondson demonstrates how the commission itself may have deviated from its own zoning designations when the property was zoned and then rezoned by the coastal agency.

Edmondson points out the clock must be turned back to 2002 when the Coastal Commission was preparing the city’s Local Coastal Program, another story all of its own.

At that time the city and the state Department of Parks and Recreation were engaged in a discussion in which the state was proposing to fund the transfer of the existing ball fields onto the adjacent, privately owned Crummer property.

“The goal of the discussion,” she writes, “was to preserve the playing fields while keeping the park’s regional uses. In the end, the goals were accomplished in an agreement different than the one contemplated at the time the LCP was being drafted; instead of moving the fields, the city bought the portion of Bluffs Park that included the playing fields and the Michael Landon Center and the remainder of the property was transferred to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, with the parking shared between the two.”

Consequently, it is argued that the Crummer property was unaffected by the transaction.

“The commission, of course, did not have any way of knowing in September 2002 what the outcome of that negotiation would be and the commission adopted a policy that reflected the knowledge of the ongoing negotiations.” added Edmondson.

She noted what the commission came up with in its Land Use Policy crafted at that time for the Crummer property.

It states, “If an agreement is reached by the State Department of Parks and Recreation to relocate the existing athletic fields at Malibu Bluffs State Park out of the prime view shed of the park onto the 24.9 acre Crummer Family Trust parcel which is adjacent to the state park on the east and south of Pacific Coast Highway up to eight residential units shall be permitted on the remainder of the Crummer Trust site. Said agreement shall cause the redesignation of the subject site to Residential in the LCP. Said agreement shall not exempt the residential development from compliance with all other provisions of the LCP, if no agreement is reached to relocate the existing athletic fields the permitted use on the Crummer Trust parcel shall remain CV-2 Commercial visitor serving.”

However, Edmonson has several comments to make about that statement.

“The policy incorrectly presumes that the Crummer Trust site is designated CV-2. When the commission adopted the Local Implementation Program, the commission designated the property planned  development on all the LIP Land Use and Zoning Maps, as well as in the actual definition of Planned Development…

“A PD is the most appropriate zone for this parcel because it is immediately surrounded by residential and recreational uses and the PD designation,” the planner concludes.

So it appears, the commission’s reasons for keeping the donated parcel active rather than passive because of the priority of rezoning CV-2  is based on the erroneous assumptions about the zoning of the Crummer property.

 “In addition, the policy is outdated in its reference to the state’s ownership of Bluffs Park. The city purchased the ten acres from the SMMC and now owns the Michael Landon Center, the parking lots the maintenance facility, the roads, the walkways, the picnic area/whale watching platform and the ball fields,” she notes.

The remainder of the 83 acres outside the city park was retained by the SMMC. “Since it is not the city’s intent to relocate the existing athletic fields from Bluffs Park, the LUP Policy 2.79 is now obsolete,” Edmonson states. The city’s amendment was intended to correct the inconsistency created between the policy and the zoning designation.