Zuma Canyon Project Receives Tentative OK

The County Board of Supervisors has tentatively approved a hilltop condominium and office project that angry Zuma Canyon neighbors say might cause landslides, flush sewage into their back yards and destroy the rustic nature of their community.

The supervisors, on a 4-0 vote Thursday, stated their intention to allow Malibu developer Dorn L. Schmidt to build 13 condominiums and to continue to use an old church on a 6.5-acre site near Point Dume as an office building.

A final vote was delayed until questions raised at recent hearings about the possible geological instability of the site can be formally answered in county environmental documents.

But supervisors left little doubt about how they view the project, which is opposed by nearly 70 canyon homeowners whose luxury residences form a half-circle around it.

Deane Dana, whose 4th District includes Malibu, said he has walked the site and that it could support more development than now proposed.

“Thirteen townhouses seems (to be) under-building,” Dana said.

Likewise, Supervisor Pete Schabarum said that if he were the owner of the parcel, he would have wanted more dwellings on it.

With 13 condos, the Schmidt project would more than double the number of dwellings allowed under existing zoning. The supervisors endorsed the required zoning change on Thursday.

A change in the Malibu Local Plan is also required for the project. The plan, adopted by the supervisors and the California Coastal Commission after much debate in 1986, allows 12 dwellings but not an office building.

If finally approved by the supervisors and the commission, the local plan amendment would be only the second granted under the new master plan.

Zuma Canyon Property Owners Assn. representatives, though threatening a lawsuit to stop the condominiums last month, said Thursday that they were not yet sure how to respond to the project’s tentative approval.

Attorney H. Randall Stoke told supervisors that the county had violated state law by not including the findings of the homeowners’ geological consultants in reports to the Regional Planning Commission and to the supervisors.

Those and other legal problems with the environmental reports “can’t be pasted over again,” Stoke said.

County lawyers, while acknowledging procedural mix-ups, said the report could withstand a legal challenge.

Test Results

In making their decision, supervisors cited results of extensive geological tests by Schmidt’s consultants and assurances by county engineers that the condos’ septic systems could absorb all sewage water produced.

A Schmidt spokesman said 29 wells had been drilled to test the geology of the parcel.

And county planning administrator John Schwarze said in an interview that “in a small case, this is the most extensive (study of) geology I’ve ever seen. Public works tells us the property drains and there’s no problem with septic tanks.”

However, Stoke argued that no more than six homes should be allowed.

“The real issue here is whether you can build any sewage system for more than six units (that will work),” Stoke said.

Three experts hired by the homeowners have concluded that 13 dwellings and the existing office building will produce far too much waste water for septic tanks and leach fields to handle.

They pointed to other communities along the Malibu coast where excessive waste water has contributed to landslides. In Big Rock Mesa, for example, a 1983 landslide affected 300 homes, they said.

“Every septic system for a condo in Malibu has failed,” homeowner spokesman Tom Meade said. “They’re holding a balloon over my head and saying, ‘Hey, this won’t break.’ ”

Homeowners also argued that neither the condos nor the office building is compatible with the Zuma Canyon neighborhood north of Pacific Coast Highway, which is made up exclusively of single family homes on lots at least one-half acre in size.

Schmidt, who originally proposed 30 condos for the parcel, has argued that the condominiums and the office building are justified because Point Dume Plaza is just across the coast highway from his parcel and apartments have been built nearby.

Regional planners also concluded that the project would be a logical extension of the urbanization that has taken place along the highway at Point Dume in recent years.

Though the issue has not been raised in hearings, a number of homeowners have said large political contributions by Schmidt to Dana, Schabarum and Supervisor Mike Antonovich have created a conflict of interest for them.

From 1981 through 1987, Schmidt gave $10,500 to Dana, $10,750 to Schabarum and $11,500 to Antonovich. All three voted for the condo proposal, as did Supervisor Ed Edelman.