Kelly Noland
Staff Writer
Over the past 13 years, an area known as Trancas Field has had controversy surrounding what will be done with it. The controversy continues to swirl as a new plan for how to use the land was presented recently to Malibu City Council to be discussed.
A realtor company known as Trancas/PCH currently owns the beachfront property that has so many people talking. Dean Isaacson, the man who has been working on the Trancas Field dilemma, proposed a plan in 2003 that would give the city twenty-six and a-half acres for baseball and soccer fields. The donation of the land would leave the realtor company with eight and a-half acres to build 32 town homes.
In the past ten years, Trancas/PCH has been unable to get Malibu to agree to any plan having to do with the land. Due to the city’s high demand for new sports fields, the new deal is an attempt to give the city something it wants in exchange for something the realtor company wants.
At one point, the Malibu City Council actually accepted the deal. Since then, however, the Trancas Property Association filed a lawsuit against the deal. This past October, the California Court of Appeals for the Second Appellate District ruled the deal null and void for its violation of zoning laws and the Brown Act.
The violation of the Brown Act occurred when the Council approved the deal in a closed meeting when it required a public hearing. Zoning laws were violated when the City of Malibu agreed to not enact any zoning restrictions that would prohibit the building of the townhomes on the land. The problem occurred because the plan was already in violation of existing zoning laws.
While the ruling was in favor of the Trancas Property Association, Isaacson said he still has the state of California on his side. “The court liked the concept of the deal,” Isaacson said. “They just didn’t like the wording of how the contract was written.”
So, Isaacson is coming back full force with a new deal. He has offered to give the city two more acres of land as well as a donation of $1 million to help build the fields. He’s sweetening the deal even more by emphasizing that there will be four affordable housing units among the 32 townhomes.
The recent events surrounding Trancas Field have stirred up responses from many Malibu residents. The ideas for the plan had the little league teams jumping for joy at the prospect of having new fields for the first time in 15 years. More affordable housing also had several members of Malibu singing the new deal’s praises.
Numerous rallies have been held to support the Trancas realtor plan. One such rally on March 26th invited Little League teams to come and even gave the players a chance to voice their own opinions. Players, as young as 8, spoke about early morning practices and odd hours that they had to play in order to have an open field.
The overall opinion among the kids seems to be that no matter what, some new fields need to be built somewhere.
The residents who already live on Trancas Canyon Road, however, are less than thrilled about having their views blocked by houses and their roads jammed by Saturday baseball game traffic. “It’s going to block views and create traffic.” said Kami Dexter, a Trancas Road resident. “That just isn’t what the people of Trancas are looking for.”
The homeowners involved in the lawsuit against Trancas/PCH feel that Isaacson is not trying to help out the young children who want to play baseball, but is actually using it as a bribe to get the city to approve his costly and invasive housing development.
Isaacson responds that it is only a few of the residents who feel this way. “Trancas property homeowners filed a lawsuit on a technicality,” Isaacson said. “Only a minority of the homeowners paid for the lawsuit.”
Whether or not the Trancas Property Association has the support of every Trancas Canyon Road resident or not, it has been fairly successful in stopping the developing of Trancas field. Isaacson feels it isn’t stopping the production, just postponing it.
Either way, the controversy that has surrounded Trancas field for over 13 years doesn’t look like it will be resolved any time soon.
07-11-2006