Articles - THE CITY ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW BOARD

According to the City's Home Page web site:

The Environmental Review Board serves as a technical advisory committee to the Planning Manager and provides technical assistance to the Manager and the City of Malibu regarding environmental issues on projects brought before them. The purview of the ERB is limited to biological resource issues, geological issues, siting of structures on hillsides, fuel modification issues, and planting of wildland edges, unless otherwise directed by the Planning Manager.

An applicant is required to submit to ERB scrutiny whenever the City Planning Manager or the City Biologist thinks it's a good idea. Presumably, members of the Board are selected for their expertise, to offer opinions or guidance on issues not directly addressed by either the Local Implementation Plan (LIP) or the Land Use Plan (LUP) of the City's Local Coastal Program, or on issues that may arise when there is an apparent conflict between a developer and a party opposed to such development. Ostensibly, the ERB's purpose is to help interpret whether a certain aspect of a proposed project violates some section of the LUP or LIP on environmental grounds.

In principle, this seems reasonable and desirable. In practice however, it is procedurally questionable. Because minutes of hearings before the ERB are not kept, its members cannot be held responsible for their opinions or votes. Consequently, there can be no grounds for an applicant to document errors in the ERB proceedings on appeal before the Planning Commission or the City Council. Furthermore, since ERB members are appointees, they may carry with them preconceived notions or sympathies of those who appointed them.

There also are two ethical problems of concern regarding the ERB members themselves. First, there may be an ERB member who is prejudiced against an applicant because of that member's public stance on an earlier unrelated project was disputed by an expert who now testifies for the another applicant. Second, one or more members of the ERB who practice their expertise in Malibu may not care to risk jeopardizing their reputations as developers' darlings by questioning a project.

Advice for the City is a good thing so long as it is objective and avoids even the appearance of impropriety. The ERB presently lacks such an appearance. In my opinion, ERB members should not be among those who work in Malibu; otherwise, they should be subject to challenge by the applicant based on possible conflicts of interest.

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