Biggest Houses Get Haircut Under Proposed City Policy
Written by 991KBU on February 27, 2019
How big should the biggest houses be in Malibu?
About one quarter less than currently allowed … according to the city council.
Meeting late Monday night … policy was set for the city’s controversial neighborhood character definition.
Landowners … architects … bureaucrats and decision makers have been in a state of confusion over contradictory city policy.
The Planning Commission has been strictly enforcing the state Local Coasta Plan … as they see it … and rejecting giant houses that violate neighborhood character.
Commissioner John Mazza told the city council Monday that creeping mansionization is going to start galloping across Malibu … as houses are rebuilt after the big fire.
NEWSCART 01969 MAZZA QQQ OR A REHAB
“You got a bunch of mansions and you got more people.
“You have a smaller, quite neighborhood, you have a smaller quiet neighborhood.
“When we look at rebuilding 400 houses, 200 those could be air B&Bs, 200 of them could be rehabs, if you let them all get giants.
“We’ve approved houses that are 10 thousand square feet with eight bedrooms, and they look exactly like an air B&B or a rehab.”
While the Planning Commission has been cracking down … that has rankled people who have building projects pending at City Hall.
Architect Doug Burdge.
NEWSCART 02008 BURDGE QQQ THINK WE ARE GOING TO PASS YOU
“You have the planning commission, for over a year now basically causing a blockade or a moratorium on just regular people that were just doing what they did and told to do by current codes, and then at the last minute saying ‘oh we think your house is too big we’re not going to pass you.’ “
So … the city council decided to cut the maximum house size in Malibu … from just over 11 thousand square feet … to 85 hundred square feet.
If a new house is proposed for a giant lot … and could be bigger than 85 hundred square feet without impinging on setback or height restrictions …. that could be okayed only if the resulting house would be smaller than the 10 closest houses in the neighborhood.
There is a lot of definition-writing to do here.
City staff has been told to come back with an ordinance that reflects this plan … it goes before the Planning Commission later this winter.
How this will affect the 90 or so house proposals still in the pipeline … and how it will affect houses replacing fire destruction … yet to be exactly seen.
And the issue of gigantic houses along the oceanfront … a separate zoning category … not even brought up yet.
