Malibu Park Protests Proposed McMansion

By approving the appeal of the Malibu Park Neighborhood Group, the City Council at its upcoming meeting has a rare opportunity to achieve several estimable objectives in the continuing struggle to preserve the city’s values and vision as a desirable iconic coastal community.

First specifically it will deep six the proposed questionable “rebuild” of 29738 Cuthbert Road, which would more than double its size to nearly 9,000 gross square feet, flaunting the features of an undesirable drug and alcohol rehab facility posing as a single-family residence in a compromised Malibu Park.

This is not a like-for-like rebuild, as defined by the city, but more like a bloated, brazen like-for-profit project, and an obscene gesture to neighbors and neighborhood standards, and to all of Malibu. We do not need another of these off-putting projects.

What else would a plan indicating nine ensuite bedrooms, several auxiliary meeting rooms, served by an interior hallway, ramps and an elevator indicate, except perhaps also a motel or house of ill repute, which both would be among other things a blatant zoning violation in Malibu Park’s designation as a rural residential equestrian community.

The proposal also bluntly is out of scale, poorly sited, an abuse of neighborhood character, and third rate architecture, a McMansion, in my immodest opinion as the former design critic of the LA Times and at present for select media. Of note, I also am cited among others by Wikipedia as the source of the phrase McMansion, depicting an oversized and ostentatious building.

Second, approving the appeal would send a message to the avaricious development community not to squander its time and funds hiring architects and plan facilitators to pursue such obvious gross projects, and also consume valuable city staff and legislative time reviewing them and having to grind out the accompanying bureaucratic babble.

Third, it will give an opportunity for councilpersons Marianne Riggins and Doug Stewart to rectify the imprudent rubber stamping of the project by their appointees to a past City Planning Commission, the heedless pro development Sklar Peak and Drew Leonard, then in coercion with Dennis Smith. He was appointed by Paul Grisanti, who subsequently for good cause was defeated for reelection, something Riggins and Stewart should note if they are considering ever running for reelection.

As for councilpersons Bruce Silverstein, Steve Uhring and Haylynn Conrad, one hopes and expects they display the persuasive and praiseworthy commitment they have in the past in support of the city’s Vision and Mission statements and approve the appeal, as well as thank its principal appellant Charlotte Frieze Jones, as all who care about Malibu should.