Compromise Talks With MRCA Over Camping Collapse – Surprise
Written by 991KBU on May 28, 2019
Talks have apparently broken down between Malibu homeowners and the government agencies that want camping in local canyons.
Local resident Barry Haldeman says county supervisor Sheila Kuehl has decided to embrace a change in the Coastal Commission’s Local Coastal Plan for the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu.
Residents in Ramirez Canyon have already won a court battle blocking a campground planned for the area above Paradise Cove.
A judge ruled that camping in an environmentally sensitive habitat area … an ESHA … is not allowed state law.
To get around that … Joe Edmiston and the Mountain Resource Conservation Authority are pushing to simply rewrite the local coastal plan.
Sheila Kuehl delayed the rewrite to try to let the Malibu residents and Edmiston reach a compromise … a peacemaking attempt that … predictably … failed.
Their new language … that would reportedly allow camping unless it would “substantially” damage the ESHA.
But … Malibu city council member Rick Mullen was a plaintiff in that original lawsuit.
He says a Superior Court judge has already ruled … no camping in an ESHA … no matter what the MRCA and Coastal Commission put in the local coastal plan.
That matches language in coastal plans up and down the coast …. where camping is allowed in environmentally sensitive areas.
Haldeman says the the amendment is set to be heard by the county supervisors on June 11th.
We’ve been asking Kuehl’s office for their take on this …. but they have not commented.
