Proposed Malibu Park Rebuild Opposed

PROPOS

There are fire rebuilds and then there is 29738 Cuthbert Road, a proposed questionable rebuild with all the features of a rehab facility posing as a single-family residence in a compromised Malibu Park.

And just as the Woolsey disaster laid waste to most of the Park’s pastoral ambience, turning homes and landscapes into ash, 29738 as proposed would further tragically damage the community, as well as property values.

The dubious proposal to be aired before the City Planning Commission calls for the reasonable rebuilding of the previous residence of 3872 sq. ft., but with a blatantly unreasonable addition of 4620 sq. ft, for a total project of 8492 sq ft.

This is more than double the size of the original residence and clearly an abuse of neighborhood standards and character, an architectural conceit infringing on an environmentally sensitive buffer zone, requiring several variances, including exceeding height limitations.

These design issues and questionable variances typically proposed by avaricious developers and arrogant architects tend to be greeted by a compliant city staff and its chummy consultants, and the present imprudent pro development majorities of the Planning Commission and City Council.

But what makes the proposal for 29738 so egregious and deserving a slap down rejection is not noted in the reams of City Hall’s bureaucratic babble and boilerplate identifying the project as a single-family residence.

And this when the plans reveal the addition to feature nine ensuite bedrooms, several auxiliary meeting rooms, served by an interior hallway, ramps and an elevator. This gross architectural program suggests one of three uses:

A motel, which would be a platant zoning violation in Malibu Park’s designation as a rural residential equestrian community.

A house of ill repute, the addition’s nine bedrooms commonly called cribs and in the past housed prostitutes in the mining towns of the historic West.

This leaves the third use, a drug and alcohol addiction rehab center or sober living facility. Publicly decried by the city and impacted neighborhoods, the fact is that these facilities are protected by State laws that supersede local zoning, and cannot be barred per se.

Still, whatever the proposal is called, 29738, a residential or rehab structure, it fails to meet the paramount local building codes, and as indicated by the variances requested and a reading of neighborhood character. Needed is a City Hall with gumption to oppose it.

But the prospects of profits have made the rehab community guileful, and local governments and their consultants wary, particularly of the prospects of appeals, given the history of its legal representation.

To be sure, at the urging of select neighborhoods where rehab centers have located in Malibu, the city has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars retaining lobbyists and underwriting numerous forays to Sacramento, typically to no avail.

Whatever, it's been no matching the deep pocketed, politically connected facility developers and operators, especially of the exclusive luxury archetype models with Malibu addresses catering to the rich and famous to the tune of astronomical prices.

As for the fate of the proposed Cuthbert rebuild, the vote will be a moment of truth for the future of Malibu Park. You would think it has suffered enough from the Woolsey Fire.

This sham project sets a dangerous and damning precedent for Malibu Park, and Malibu, and should be rejected.