Malibu District Loses Proposition 218 Case

A beach protection district created by the City of Malibu to restore Broad Beach cannot lay off all the costs of the project onto property owners. Rather, under Proposition 218, the district is required to separate out special and general benefits, an appellate court has ruled. Broad Beach is a one-mile long beach near Trancas Canyon facing the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, which includes 121 private homes and two county parks. But it is no longer broad. The shoreline has retreated 65 feet since 1974 and now consists of a narrow strip and almost no sand beach at high tide. Local property owners created a revetment to protect their houses, apparently without any governmental permits. Subsequently, they asked the City of Malibu to create a special district for beach protection – which the city did. The district divided property owners into three zones, depending on the amount of benefit received from the improvements. Vacant parcels received a discounted assessment and county parks parcels were not assessed any amount. In the process of legalizing the revetment and making other improvements, however, the district had to bear additional costs imposed by the Coastal Commission and other government agencies.

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