Malibu officials fight LADWP storage yard on Corral Canyon Play

Malibu city officials are most unhappy that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has graded the side of a mountain on Corral Canyon Road with the apparent intention of installing a temporary storage yard for pipe and other construction materials for the rebuilding of infrastructure in Pacific Palisades.

The proposed “lay yard” is more than 10 miles away from the Los Angeles city limits, and is in the geographic center of Malibu.

Significant earthmoving has already been underway at the site, apparently part of the land purchased for a nuclear power plant that was scuttled by DWP more than 55 years ago, after intense opposition from Malibu residents.

In the past 90 days, DWP crews have graded a hillside parcel of DWP-owned land on Corral Canyon Road, north of the Malibu Beach RV Park. Security guards have reportedly shooed away people who stopped to take pictures of the work.

The DWP told Malibu officials it intends to use this graded area as a “lay down yard” for the storage of material to be used in reconstructing infrastructure in the Pacific Palisades burn area, 10.8 miles from this parcel to the Los Angeles city limits.

This route traverses six miles of fire-damaged Pacific Coast Highway, an area where Caltrans, SCE, and nongovernment construction activity has resulted in the loss of 3 of the 5 traffic lanes in Malibu on a near-fulltime basis.

Ninety days ago, on March 4, the City of Malibu granted an administrative Emergency Coastal Development Permit to LADWP, good for 90 days. At Monday night’s city council meeting, Mayor Bruce Silverstein said the emergency CDP expired Monday and, under the city’s codes, all work on the land must stop.

Plus, without a CDP, the lot cannot be used for anything, Silverstein said.

Silverstein asserted Monday that the emergency permit cannot be renewed, and that city codes require a permanent CDP be issued for the project if it is to be built.

LADWP has requested a permanent CDP, which goes to the Malibu Planning Commission on Aug. 3 for a decision. That vote is appealable to the Malibu city council and possibly the Coastal Commission.

The land is zoned rural residential. An industrial “lay yard” would require a CDP and possibly a zoning change, which would require Coastal Commission approval.

“As I see it, right now, that lot cannot be used for the purpose it has been graded,” Silverstein said Monday night.

“I know that they claim to have examined and rejected all sorts of places that could be used closer to that area,” he continued. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

As of Tuesday morning, DWP officials did not reply to an overnight request for an explanation as to why it would truck heavy equipment and supplies 10 miles west of Los Angeles for storage and eventual use back in the big city. PCH across western Malibu is closed to large trucks, except for local delivery within that closure area.

DWP recently closed a temporary “lay down yard” it had used for one year at the corner of PCH at Topanga Canyon Boulevard, just one mile from Los Angeles.

Other temporary construction yards were also set up by various utility companies immediately after the Palisades Fire at Will Rogers Beach, within the Palisades Fire area.

Obtaining a CDP from the city would mean explaining to the Planning Commission how many large trucks would travel to and from the lay down yard to deliver construction materials to Corral Canyon. Also, how many large or small trucks would travel to and from the lay down yard per day to pick up construction materials from the Corral Canyon site.

The proposed lay down yard traffic would assumably affect PCH through the Malibu portion of the Palisades Fire zone, where 720 houses were destroyed, about 1/10 of Malibu’s housing unit stock.

Caltrans last week narrowed the highway and removed the center turn lane through the heart of the fire zone, where heavy construction traffic is already clogging traffic and causing one of two lanes in either direction to be blocked most days.

The DWP storage yard would also affect traffic on Corral Canyon Road, which serves as the only road in to, or out from, about 225 houses in very high fire risk hills and canyons.

The proposal landed with a thud in Malibu, where many residents feel that the City of Los Angeles failed to staff up its fire department before the fire winds were forecast to arrive 18 months ago.

Many residents also note DWP’s failure to repair out-of-service hydrants in the Palisades in the months leading to the fire. And some may also recall that City of Los Angeles police, firefighters and traffic bureau staff blocked Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu traffic during the fire, in favor of evacuating the Palisades.

KBUU Radio has asked the DWP for comment, but no statement has been issued as of Tuesday midmorning.