Angel Law attorneys Cassandra Vo and Frank P. Angel successfully represented the Malibu Township Council in this land use battle, achieving a unanimous City of Malibu planning commission decision (1) denying LADWP’s application for a coastal development permit for an industrial laydown yard, inappropriately sited on LADWP property located in officially mapped ESHA (environmentally sensitive habitat area); (2) rejecting LADWP’s attempt to circumvent the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) through inapplicable CEQA exemptions; and (3) ordering restoration of the site after LADWP graded it pursuant to a below-the-public-radar emergency permit, unlawfully issued by city of Malibu planning staff in late March 2026.
This utility laydown yard was proposed in the California coastal zone portion of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, smack-dab between over 1,500 acres of public parklands and undisturbed wildlife habitat — Solstice Canyon Park on the west, operated by the National Park Service, featuring the popular Solstice Waterfall, and Corral Canyon Park on the east, operated by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority in partnership with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, featuring the popular Sara Wan trail. None of those public agencies had been notified of LADWP’s plan before it began to bulldoze the site.
Decades ago, LADWP secretly acquired the site for another ill-fated project: a nuclear power plant atop the active Malibu Coast Fault. Par for the course for a water and power behemoth infamous for its brazen land grabs in the Owens Valley in California’s eastern Sierra region.
Read more in the Malibu Times at https://malibutimes.com/planning-commission-unanimously-denies-ladwp-corral-canyon-yard-appeal-due-aug-17/.
