Malibu Council Postpones Talk On Letting Homeless Sleep At Beach

MALIBU, CA — The Malibu City Council tabled a resolution that will initiate a process to turn a portion of Zuma Beach into a “safe parking zone” where homeless people could stay overnight in their cars in a fenced off and supervised area.

Mayor Karen Farrer and various councilmembers said that a remote meeting was not the appropriate forum for such an important discussion.

“I’d like to see it continued to a date when meetings are held in person again,” she said.

“I think it caught all of us kind of off guard, and for best intentions in this post-COVID world we’re in trying to get things done and move forward, and public participation is vitally important, and obviously this is not the forum where we can really do an important item like this that needs a lot more public time and participation,” said Mayor Pro Tempore Mikke Pierson.

Once public, in-person hearings are held, Malibuites are sure to have a lot to say about it. Councilmember Jefferson Wagner unfurled a long roll of paper containing the names of 312 residents who wrote to him on the topic. Councilmember Rick Mullen said that he was impressed the breadth of the over 300 individually-written letters he received from constituents.

Most of those people didn’t seem thrilled with the proposal.

“I think at this point based on the feedback we’ve received everyone’s pretty adamantly against it, so we’d have to circle back and look at a different area,” said Councilmember Skylar Peak. “I don’t think anyone has an exact solution for homelessness, but our priority has to be keeping the residents of our community safe.”

Item 3.B.7 on the agenda will begin the process of determining whether the City would amend its Municipal Code to rezone a portion of Zuma Beach as a safe parking zone. The idea was first raised in a Jan. 29 Council meeting on the city's growing homeless population.

When the beaches and parking spots along the PCH were open, an increasing number of RVs were a permanent fixture along the highway’s side shoulder. On Jan. 26, an article in the Los Angeles Times reported 50 vans permanently parked along the highway one weekday morning, with large congregations near Las Tunas Beach. Once parking is allowed again, the RVs will likely return.

In seeking to address the issue, the Council directed City staff to propose locations for a safe parking zone where individuals can register their car, stay overnight, and leave in the morning. According to City Manager Reva Feldman, anyone registering their car would be required to enroll in services to find a path to permanent housing.

“A safe parking lot is a very controlled program – typically it is completely fenced-in, there is an on-site staff person who is responsible for those people enrolled in a program, there are strict times when individuals and their vehicles can enter the site in the evening, and the site is then completely closed all night – there’s no in and out,” said Feldman. “It was never an intent to develop anything in the city as an ‘encampment,’ which I think is a semantic problem we may have come across.”

Other locations have been floated. The Old Malibu Courthouse downtown is being considered as a temporary homeless shelter, while locations in Topanga were also selected as potential sites for safe parking zones. Should the Council decide to adopt the resolution after public comment, the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing and present its recommendations to the Council.

For the time being, councilmembers expressed a desire to find a way to address a crisis that shows no signs of abating.

“We [need to] find a balance between helping people and moving them out of homelessness and protecting our community,” said Pierson. “From day one, the number one thing we wanted to do was really realize how much public outreach we need and that remains, because it’s a really complex subject. I don’t think there’s any win-wins. There’s just trying to do the best we can in a very tough and evolving situation.”