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The Malibu Times The Malibu Times NEWS PA PER • MAGAZ I NE • O NL I NE
NEW S PAPER • MAGAZINE •ONLINE Malibu’s Award-Winning Community Paper Since 1946
VOL. LXXV • NO. XLI
Homelessness Task Force finalizes recommendations
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2022
malibutimes.com • $.50 • WEEKLY
City Hall hosts testing site
“Alternative Sleeping Locations” top the list
Las Virgenes considers restrictions. Will Los Angeles County Waterworks follow suit?
By JIMY TALLAL Special to The Malibu Times
Last July, after nearly 20 fires had been started in various local homeless encampments in just the previous six months, residents had enough. It was a drought year, and the extremely dry vegetation in and around Malibu posed a very high fire danger—to a City still reeling after nearly 10 percent of its houses burned in the 2018 Woolsey Fire. City Council took action by amending its Nuisance Code, giving it more teeth to address fire hazards in homeless encampments and private properties. On Aug. 23, they voted 5-0 to declare a state of local emergency, “to prevent the occurrences of fire and loss of life and property,” which gave the Sheriff ’s Department a legal means to clear out homeless encampments, which they did. (Once the rains started, the City lifted the “emergency” declaration because fire conditions changed, but it still has the legal tools to remove encampments.) Council also appointed ten members to a new Homeless Task Force last August, with the aim of looking at permanent, long-term solutions in addition to the City’s two full-time outreach workers and the Sheriff ’s Homeless Outreach Services Team. The task force is now putting the finishing touches on its recommendations, which were put CONTINUED ON PAGE A5
By JUDY ABEL Special to The Malibu Times
Malibu Medical Group partnered with the City of Malibu to host a drive thru COVID-19 testing clinic on Saturday, Jan. 22. Photo by Samantha Bravo/TMT
City holds 27th drivethru testing clinic By SAMANTHA BRAVO Of The Malibu Times
While the City of Malibu experienced wind gusts between 50 to 70 on Saturday, Jan. 22, it didn’t prevent Malibu residents from waiting in their vehicles to get tested for COVID-19 at City Hall. Public Safety Specialist Sarah Kaplan said they had about ten people in line when they began testing at
‘A Bridge to the Past’
10 a.m. “Since then, it’s been steady, but relatively slow,” Kaplan said. “So we’re excited to have more people come get tested next week.” Kaplan said Malibu City Hall has hosted 27 COVID-19 testing sites between Apr. 6, 2020 and Jan. 22. “Right now, the medical group who we are partnering with is offering PCR tests, which are the nasal swab tests,” Kaplan said. “People who come to get tested will receive an email link directly from the lab, and right now, the projected re-
sponse time is 24 to 48 hours, so anywhere within one to two days.” Malibu City members and the Malibu CERT team helped direct vehicles to the testing kit tent where volunteers and Co-founder of the Malibu Medical Group, Dr. Lisa Benya, instructed participants how to use the nasal swab. “We had quite a line, it took us about an hour to get through the initial line, and since then, we’ve been steady; we just have one after the other,” Benya said. “The very first time we do one of these the word
doesn’t quite get out everywhere, then the second time we do it, then it’s usually mayhem, and we like that; so we’re staffed up and ready to do (help) as many people as we need.” Benya said the positivity rate for the Delta virus in Malibu was relatively low compared to the most recent virus—Omicron. “Malibu’s been amazing,” Benya said. “I think the mandates and people following the safety protocols and guidelines and everything our CONTINUED ON PAGE A5
The Malibu Real Estate Report By Rick Wallace
2021 — Greatest Year Ever Sales nearly doubled to $2.857B in total transactions
Cooper’s Camp, circa 1930. The Rust family’s house is on the far right. Photo courtesy of the Randy Young Collection
Part of a series on overlooked Malibu history By PABLO CAPRA Special to The Malibu Times
T
he bridge that crosses the Topanga Lagoon is easy to miss, but it played a major role in the area’s development, and it’s set to do so again by the end of the decade. About 80 feet long, the bridge was built in 1933, even though there were already two larger bridges that crossed the creek. The older bridge, about 150 long, may have been built by Fredrick
Water District threatens flow restrictors on water wasters
Rindge, who bought the Malibu ranch in 1897 and directed the construction of the coast road. Located behind today’s Rosenthal Winery, the bridge crossed at an easier spot, but put a 90-degree kink in the road that also appeared in the angularity of its triangular trusses. A 1923 bridge, 240 feet long, was built by the State to keep the road in line with the coast. It was contracted to two companies, Greene and Lemore, who plowed through Cooper’s Camp (the earliest version of the Topanga Ranch Motel) and added an underpass to a bathhouse on the beach. The contractors also paved over a Native-American burial mound that hadn’t been properly studied. Their road is still CONTINUED ON PAGE A8
The year 2021 in Malibu real estate obliterated every standard and previous record for sales and values ever recorded. It was not just a good year, or even a better one than 2020, which needed only six months after Covid arrived to set new records; it went well beyond in every statistical category. Consider that just two years ago, in 2019, about $865 million in sales volume was recorded for homes in Malibu (90265 ZIP code). That number almost doubled in 2020 to $1.68 billion. It almost doubled AGAIN LAST YEAR – going to $2,857,000,000 in total transactions. Nearly $3 billion! Malibu had never seen $2 billion. Furthermore, the totals sales hit 360, surpassing the once-insurmountable record of 353 set back in year 2000. By the end of the year, 360 sales (an alltime record) combined with 92 houses for sale (a record low inventory for the past 50 years) leaves us with the most intensely heavy seller’s market, almost unimaginable. Even with a mind-blowing 360 transactions, the average sale price of those deals was nearly $8 million. Of course, mammoth transactions, including the biggest in California history at $177 million in Paradise Cove, pumped up the averages. Still, $8 million per closed escrow, as an average, is staggering. These numbers, and their comparisons, apples-to-apples, to previous years, include only single-family residences (1-4 units) in the 90265 Zip code. Increasingly, transactions are made “off-market,” not actively listed in the local Multiple Listing
Service. But those trades are traceable via numerous reviews of public records. During the final few months of 2021, an overwhelming number of bona fide transactions popped up in public records. Everything seemed to be selling, even houses not for sale. Twenty-two homes sold for in excess of $20 million. The previous record was 12 such deals. Besides, 83 homes sold for more than $10 million (previous record: 43). And with only one lonely deal at the top of Corral Canyon bringing in less than $1 million (for one bedroom, one bath), deals under seven digits seem permanently gone with the wind. The chart charge on page 5 shows the evolution of total sales volume and sales units in Malibu—excluding the tallies for condos and mobile homes (which combine to exceed $100 million in volume on their own). The vast majority of the 600-plus sales and approximate $4.5 billion in volume has occurred in just the past 18 months. 2019 was a down year because of the effects of the Woolsey Fire in late 2018. The past 18 months has produced over 35 percent increase in the median average, as well. More volume actually came in from the beaches and bluffs than from the “land side,” homes without direct access to the ocean. For 97 sales on the beach (another record, by far), about $1.53 billion was produced. For land side homes, taking up the other 263 sales, over $1.32 billion was tallied. Thus, just over $5 million was the average price of a LAND SIDE SALE, you know, the regular homes. CONTINUED ON PAGE A5
Despite a wet ending to 2021, California is still in a severe drought. Water supplies are so critically low that in October, Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a statewide emergency asking California residents to voluntarily reduce water usage by 15-percent. The City of Malibu has, for the most part, met that challenge. The conservation effort, however, has not been met as well in some pricey neighborhoods near Malibu. In recent months as many as 50-percent of households in the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District have exceeded their water allotments. LVMWD serves Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Agoura Hills, Westlake Village, and some 90265 Malibu residents in unincorporated areas of the Santa Monica Mountains. In an effort to force profligate users into cutting back, LVMWD is threatening water hogs. “In a worst-case scenario, we’d put a flow restrictor on your meter,” warned Mike McNutt, Public Affairs and Communications Manager at the utility. The device is a small piece of hardware that minimizes the water that goes into your home. “You still get water in your house, but it’s a deterrent because it’s going to be aggravating. If you want to take a shower, it will trickle out.” A toilet flush could take three minutes for the bowl to refill. Turning on the tap to fill a water glass could take much longer than usual. “You’re CONTINUED ON PAGE A5
INSIDE this week
Downfall: The Case Against Boeing PAGE B1 Local filmmaker Ror y Kennedy’s newest documentary Opinion . . . . . . . . . A2
News Briefs . . . . . . . A3 Real Estate . . . . . . . . A6 Malibu Life . . . . . . . B1
Calendar . . . . . . . . . A4 Legal Notices . . . . . . B3 Business Svs. & Dir. . . B5 Classifieds . . . . . . . . B6 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . B8