12:34 a.m. Vote Sends Anti-Mansion Ordinance To Council Amidst Furious Opposition

Malibu’s planning commission as recommended that the City Council reduce the maximum size allowed for houses across the city.

But it has recommended an exemption for houses on lots smaller than one acre.

It’s billed as a weapon to fight mansions …

The commission by 3 to 2 vote recommended a few changes.

The idea remains that the maximum house size and about 85 hundred square feet.

Most significantly … all lots 1 acre or less would be exempted from the new sliding scale on size limits.

The vote was at 12:36 in the morning.

It came after four hours of angry .. heartfelt … emotional testimony.

Like this …

OPPONENTS MONTAGE

PERSON 1: “Your personal feelings about large houses and people having second houses in Malibu, your personal thoughts about how people live on their property, do not seem relevant or legal.”

PERSON 2: “Reducing the size of a home allowed would reduce its value. It might have bee e a good idea at the time, nut you may want to table it and come back a few years down the line.”

PERSON 3:  “How did you get to 85 hundred square feed. Why not 84 thousand square feet?

“Where are the rational objective reason for even contemplating such a decision?”

PERSON 4:   “This is not what the city’s citizens want … and it’s obvious from the turnout tonight [[[applause fadeout]]].”

For four hours … person after person testified that it was un-American … unfair and not legal to downsize zoning.

The assistant city attorney’s spoke opinion … that it was not a downzoning and not a taking … satisfied no one.

Not everyone testified against the ordinance … Georgina Goldfarb was one of about four who spoke in favor.

She mentioned the Malibu mission statement.

GOLDFARB

“… to preserve Malibu’s natural and rural character.

“That’s why I moved here.

“The beauty and the peace of the land.

“Specifically, not to have some giant house next to me.”

But the slow-growth advocates … the activists who had elected the slate of candidates who favored anti-mansionization rules. … they largely were a no show.

After the 10:30 potty break … commission chairman Steve Uhring made it clear he was not changing his support in favor of the ordinance.

He cited Malibu builders advocate Don Schmitz and architect Doug Burdge … chief opponents of the ordinance.  [[PAUSE]]]

UHRING 

STEVE UHRING: “Don and Doug Burdge sat in front of us with their client, the whole family and they cried.

‘This is where i want to live forever.

I have been dying to get here.

Please let me build this house

“This This is where I want to live forever. Please let me build this house, My kids want to live here forever.

“Don and Doug Burdge cried with them.

“And the day after this house was approved, that guy in on the market and left town.

VOICE IN CROWD: “I know that guy.

“A great family.

“He got sick of you guys.”

UHRING: “Right.

VOIE IN CROWD: “Oh My God, you guys are amazing!”

UHRING: “Cuz his house approved?”

LOUD MURMURS

UHRING: “I’m talking.

“You had your chance.”

Uhring frequently lost control of the meeting … audience members heckled and challenged statements from the commissioners.

As the midnight chime passed … commissioners began bickering and disagreeing even on their mission.

MAZZA TO RUSSIN

UHRING: Between now an the time it gets to city council … let’s … can we stick… it’s going to the city coucil … we’re done with it.

COMMISSIONER JOHN MAZZA: Why don’t we want to consider neighborhood character? We’re putting

UHRING: I am trying to figure out how we consider neighborhood chracter.

MAZZA: We’re putting these architects thru the same rigamarole they used to go  thru.

UHRING: John…

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE, MAYBE COMMISSIONER KRAIG HILL: John It;’s a different problem and it’s just not the problem on our plate right now.

MAZZA: It’s the problem that we were assigned to.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE, MAYBE HILL: We were assigned the mansion … the TDSF figures.

MAZZA: No it is not, we were assigned to make it simple.

UHRING: Look. Here’s my suggestion.  We put this thru. It’s going to come back to us right?

RUSSIN:No we have enough this is simple enough we can just put this in the resolution.”

That was three or four city planning commissioners and assistant city attorney Trevor Russin at the end.

Bottom line.

The anti-mansionization ordinance moves back to the city planning staff … with instructions to refine it … and make these recommendations to the city council:

• the ordinance should cover all residential zoning categories except multi-family.
• the overall house size on very large lots was recommended capped at a maximum of 8500 square feet.
• there would be a sliding scale for smaller houses … houses under one acre would be exempt.
• – a house must comprise about 75-80 percent of the total structures on a lot (the other being studios, barns, etc.)
• There were a few other technical changes.

To be brutally honest, there was so much talking over each other and referring to unseen charts and graphs that it is very difficult to understand exactly what the recommendation was.

Whatever it was … voting against the recommendation … were John Mazza and Jeff Jennings.

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