Oceanfront Landowners Get Some Good News, But Mostly Expensive News, From The City

A plea from some fire victims in eastern Malibu last night … help us build a sewer. 

That was one message among many … as Malibu beachfront residents were given a three hour meeting with city rebuilding officials …

Pictures were sown of the devastated oceanfront land … 327 houses with destroyed shore protection under PCH.

Hundfeds of wooden and concrete piles that once held houses.

The deal made by the city with the state … houses will be allowed to encroach over state-owned tidelands … but no further that the house that burned down.

And … no wooden pilings … everything has to be on engineered concrete and steel.

And there will have to be expensive shoreline armoring to protect 327 individual onsite sewage systems … should every property owner rebuilds.

That’s a big if … some may walk away.

But the city council chambers were overflowing with property owners asking questions. 

Christopher Sorenson … a Malibu architect … did some math … multiplying the cost of installing individual high tech onsite sewage systems at each of the 320 or so burned down beachfront lots. 

He says it will cost about a half million dollars per house to install a new individual sewage system … and the oceanfront wall to protect them.

That’s 165 million dollars just for septic systems.

71073 6T012 MONTHS

“You’re talking about $165 million just for septic systems and seawalls, OK?
“That’s a lot of money.

“Now you don’t even have a foundation.

“So we’ve been talking for decades about putting a sewer in.

“We have 327 homes. We have Big Rock with another 200 homes.

“We have high technology these days – with actual vacuum sewer systems – which are very small diameter pipes.

“This system could … if we had the political will … we could get the system in in six to 12 months.”

That may be wildly optimistic.

Forming an assessment district alone might take a long time.  Getting state approval for the sewer system might take a long time.

And where would the treated effluent go?  It cannot be placed in the ocean.  Under current law, it could not be used for drinking water.  It could be pumped up a canyon and diffused into groundwater.

Where would the sewage plant be? 

The extent of beachfront property owners support for the proposed sewer is not known.

So what if everybody places their bets on a sewer system … and then the sewer system doesn’t happen??? 

That would mean that may mean a three year delay … says the city’s principal planner Tyler Eaton.

That … he says … is not really a good bet.

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“We’re trying to get you back in your homes as quickly as possible, and the current regulations that are in place today are those advanced systems.

“And we don’t want to get you in the situation where we just delay you for three years, and that sewer thing never happens, and now you’ve wasted three years of your time when you could’ve been putting in your work to get back into your homes.”

As bad as the situation is for 327 septic systems on the beach … it may be worse for the seawalls that hold up the beachfront houses. 

In 1983 … there was a series of huge winter storms that battered Malibu’s oceanfront houses. 

In the Big Rock area … a whole row of houses fell into the ocean and washed away.

Those houses sat on top of a new common retaining wall for 42 years … until they burned down in the Palisades Fire.

Last night … the homeowners got some bad news confirmed by the City of Malibu.

Lauren Doyle is the city’s seawall expert … she spoke at a community meeting about oceanfront fire damage and rebuilding.

That fairly-new seawall appears not to be salvageable. 

71071 SALVAGEABLE LAUREN DOYLE

“How do you determine if it salvageable?

“You get a structural engineering evaluation and you look at the top of the seawall elevation and the bottom of the seawall elevation, compared to what you’re going to need.

“A lot of the sea walls that failed in 1983 didn’t fall fail because of overtopping … they failed because they were undermined.”

And last night … the city showed pictures of seawalls in the La Costa and Big Rock Beach areas … nearly all of them unusable.  One architect says he’s walked the coast … and has not seen one usable undamaged caisson. 

Homeowners and architects planning replacement houses have to take into consideration what surrounds the property… The pounding ocean… The eroded cliffs on either side of their houses… and a possibly unstable Pacific Coast Highway.

71072 BOUNDARIES DOYLE 

“Define your property boundary conditions.

“As you could see in that video, there’s a variety of property boundary conditions not only on the ocean side and with shared property boundaries … but against PCH.

“And also variety of drainage conditions: existing drainage pipes, etc. that you’re going to have to evaluate – have your civil engineer evaluate – and accommodate.

“You are going to need to determine your elevations – your FEMA based flood elevation – and wave uprush.”

And for many oceanfront houses … that means starting with a base floor level that is 10 feet above the highway. 

Wooden pilings will not be allowed in the reconstruction projects. 

Rocks that were piled up on the beach to protect house foundations … which are called revetments … they will not be allowed.  Every house will have to be on steel and concrete caissons. 

Each rebuild needs to account for soil liquefaction … the Malibu Coastal Fault is right offshore … wet sand turns to goop in quakes … that needs to be factored in.

And constructibility … can heavy equipment be brought in to rebuild the house?  Crane platforms might be necessary in some places … those can be installed temporarily on the beach.

Can the construction be done without blocking PCH lanes for weeks or months to unload materiel?

Those issues have to be resolved.

There was a tiny bit of good news for homeowners last night.

They will not have to take out city permits for exploratory drilling.

State Issues New Tsunami Maps For Malibu – Miles Of PCH Will Get Flooded In Disaster

New tsunami maps have just been issued for the Malibu coast … by the State of California.

And they confirm what the federal government is saying about coastal flooding from waves.

Houses are going to have to be built higher. 

The maps show almost every oceanfront house in Malibu … not on a bluff … in the inundation zone.

20 feet underwater at Broad Beach … the broad new bridge at Trancas flooded. 

Paradise Cove … flooded. 

PCH underwater at Escondido Beach and at Malibu Seafood. 

At Malibu Lagoon … flooding as far up the creek as the shopping center … 

All of the beachfront houses … and much of the highway itself .. from Malibu Creek to Topanga Creek. 

PCH underwater in Santa Monica. 

As bad as it could be here … it would be worse in a large tsunami could flood swaths of Marina del Rey, Long Beach and the nearby dual port complex to an elevation of up to 15 feet above sea level.

The new tsunami maps emphasize a point made by quake experts for years … about Malibu.

If you feel a very strong earthquake … run to higher ground … immediately.

A major quake in the Los Angeles basin … or on the San Andreas Fault … could cause waves to immediately generate in Santa Monica Bay.

There are undersea cliffs made of sand … that have collapsed in past earthquakes … and caused water int he bay to slosh around like a bathtub with a kid in it. 

Caltrans Pushes Ahead With Plan For 1.9 Mile Bike Lane Fragment In One Direction of PCH In Downtown Malibu, First Meeting Is Santa Monica-Only

There has been more than a little bit of confusion from Caltrans about its plans to put a bike lane on one side of Pacific Coast Highway in downtown Malibu.

The state has put out several different explanations about its plans since last Friday

The public meeting to discuss the Malibu bike lane will be held in Santa Monica … at 6 p.m. Thursday of next week.  It will not be available on the Internet to Malibu residents who cannot make the 47 mile drive in rush hour traffic.

A Caltrans official  says the meeting was scheduled by Caltrans “is not equipped for Zoom or Youtube”of the meeting in the Santa Monica Library.  He said the meeting could not be moved to Malibu “because then how would Santa Monica residents become informed about the project?”

The project area is 12 miles long, nearly all of the bike lane additions are in downtown Malibu, which is 47 miles one way from the Santa Monica Library.  Only one mile of the project is in Santa Monica, and that consists of repaving only.

One official tells KBUU that the state has added the repaving project to the agenda for an April 9 Malibu meeting about future roadway changes in Malibu … the PCH Traffic Safety Master Plan … the blueprint for some future vision of PCH.

That report and its recommendations were  supposed to be unveiled in December … but that was derailed by the first fire.  Caltrans has been sitting on the plans since then, waiting for a chance to put its spin on them at a public big unveil.

Cutting through the contradictory Caltrans statements … we can tell you that Caltrans will not take comments about the bikeway decision and is pressing ahead with its $72 million repaving project from Malibu Lagoon to the Santa Monica Tunnel.

Only 1.9 miles of that segment … in Malibu … will get the bikeway.  And it will only be on the westbound section of PCH from Corral Creek to Serra Road … there’s not enough room to wedge in a bike lane in the opposite direction.

The state agency will hold an explanatory meeting on at 6 p.m. March 27 in Santa Monica, 47 miles from Malibu City Hall via the 101 and 405 freeways.   The plan will not go before the Malibu city council, but has been added to an April 9 meeting in Malibu that was originally posted as to be about the PCH Traffic Safety Master Plan.

A Caltrans official spent the day exchanging emails and then a nasty phone call with KBUU’s reporter … explaining that the meeting about the Malibu bike lane cannot be held in Malibu because “Santa Monica residents could not learn about the project” if the meeting were held in the affected area, Malibu.

And he said Malibu residents would be denied the ability to attend via Zoom or Youtube …. because the Santa Monica library is not capable of transmitting electronically.

So we asked … why not hold the meeting about the Malibu bike lane project in Malibu?

Because then Santa Monica people could not attend … came the Caltrans answer.

A correction …. yesterday we reported that the project will be this summer … the repaving project is in 2027.

It’s unclear how the repaving project will coexist with PCH being torn up for SCE to underground power lines… and for the owners of more than 300 fire destroyed houses to dig in to the water and gas lines … and for the possible sewer construction … along PCH.

It’s also not clear if opening a disconnected fragment of bike lane in Malibu, in only one direction, will become a magnet for more car/bike conflicts before the highway is slowed down in the PCH Safety Master Plan implementation.

Apparently, those issues will be discussed at the March 27 meeting.

In Santa Monica.

Caruso Supports Bass, Backs Away From Recall Drive By Malibu Billionaire

Former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso now says a recall campaign against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is “not a good idea.”

Caruso says the city needs unity and not what he characterized as costly political distractions.

And he encouraged residents to focus on rebuilding communities impacted by January’s wildfires, getting people back into their homes, and reopening businesses.

In a post on X … the westside businessman says he is not running to replace Bass.

Bass is facing a recall campaign led by Nicole Shanahan, the Malibu resident who is a former presidential running mate of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Pepperdine Law College Offering Legal Help For Fire Victims In Malibu, Palisades and Altadena

Pepperdine University’s law school has a Disaster Relief Clinic that is providing free legal advice to fire victims in Malibu … pacific laisades and Altadena.
Now … the school says it has several grants to further its mission of providing critical legal assistance to communities affected by disasters.

The clinic has hosted a series of legal clinics in Malibu and Pasadena, providing essential legal assistance to those affected.

The free legal assistance to individuals and communities affected by natural disasters, helps them navigate complex recovery processes, insurance claims, and housing disputes.

legal needs are transitioning now …  from the immediate need for assistance from FEMA and insurance companies … into transitioning to recovery and rebuilding.

The funding is contributed by the Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC),  the Seed the Dream Foundation, and the  California Community Foundation .

It’s unclear how that will coexist with PCH being torn up for SCE to underground power lines… and for the owners of more than 300 fire destroyed houses to dig in to the water and gas lines … and for the possible sewer construction … along PCH. 

Caruso Supports Bass, Backs Away From Recall Drive By Malibu Billionaire

Former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso now says a recall campaign against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is “not a good idea.”

Caruso says the city needs unity and not what he characterized as costly political distractions. 

And he encouraged residents to focus on rebuilding communities impacted by January’s wildfires, getting people back into their homes, and reopening businesses.

In a post on X … the westside businessman says he is not running to replace Bass.

Bass is facing a recall campaign led by Nicole Shanahan, the Malibu resident who is a former presidential running mate of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Pepperdine Law College Offering Legal Help For Fire Victims In Malibu, Palisades and Altadena

Pepperdine University’s law school has a Disaster Relief Clinic that is providing free legal advice to fire victims in Malibu … pacific laisades and Altadena.
Now … the school says it has several grants to further its mission of providing critical legal assistance to communities affected by disasters. 

The clinic has hosted a series of legal clinics in Malibu and Pasadena, providing essential legal assistance to those affected. 

The free legal assistance to individuals and communities affected by natural disasters, helps them navigate complex recovery processes, insurance claims, and housing disputes.

legal needs are transitioning now …  from the immediate need for assistance from FEMA and insurance companies … into transitioning to recovery and rebuilding. 

The funding is contributed by the Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC),  the Seed the Dream Foundation, and the  California Community Foundation .