Saturday, July 25, 2015

Escher's Garden



An earlier Malibu Post blog about development was titled the Escher Paradox. With the city council's approval of "vertical" open space at the Park at Cross Creek, LLC, shopping center development to meet the Malibu Local Coastal Program's landscaping percentage requirements, we appear to have the Escher solution to open space. Why stop with walls? With a folded space model of the universe, parking as well as open space could be accommodated on the ceiling. The irony of a shopping center that calls itself "The Park," while trying to get out of meeting the landscaping requirements by arguing that the walls are really a garden is logic worthy of Mr Escher's literary counterpart, Lewis Carroll. Image: M.C. Escher, Relativity

The Park LLC project? It was approved by the Malibu City Council four to five, with Councilmember Skylar Peak dissenting. Peak asked for a new traffic study, one that isn't based on the dubious contention that traffic on PCH has decreased over the past 20 years. He also rejected the project's plan to accommodate its landscaping requirement by putting a large portion of its landscaping on the walls.

That second request appears to be something the Coastal Commission is also concerned about. The city received a letter from commission staff stating that the project:

 "...includes several development standards that would apply only to the subject project site, including building height, setbacks, fence/wall height, landscaping percentage, and grading. These development standards are not consistent with the standards required by the certified Malibu Local Coastal Program..."


Malibu's unique political climate is enough to drive anyone to drink, and here's the perfect establishment to go with that vertical landscaping design.

The letter states that if the project is approved, "the modification of LCP development standards included in the CCNESP would require an amendment to the LCP."

However, the majority of the City Council, after receiving clarification from the city attorney, agreed that the landscaping changes were an acceptable alteration of the Local Coastal Program that is covered by the provisions of the project’s specific plan, and gave the project their approval. 

The project is the first to trigger the Measure R ballot requirement. It will be placed on the November 5 ballot for the community to weigh in on. 


This office building represents the spread of commercial real estate development west of Malibu Canyon, although most of the commercially zoned property in the city is located in the Civic Center area, which is why that area has always been ground zero in the fight between developers and residents. In the 1980s, when the county controlled Malibu's future, 2.5 million square feet of development was planned for Malibu. Critics of the current building boom estimate that the total buildout of the Civic Center area combined with Pepperdine University's expansion plan could top 1.7 million square feet, almost half the original estimate but still far too much for many Malibu residents.

The opportunity to actively participate in the public hearing process with our own elected officials in our own community was one of the key victories of the fight for cityhood. It's better for everyone when that discussion remains cordial, but that discussion is ultimately a civil right and not a social event, and everyone has the right to speak.

However, sometimes other tools are necessary. Traditionally litigation has been by all sides in every debate. Measure R is a different kind of defense, one that adds what one proponent has described as a failsafe to the process: a chance for voters to address development issues directly. That's something the community has sought to achieve for decades.


Development has a very real impact on the quality of life in Malibu for residents and visitors. And cumulative impact cannot be underestimated. West of the Civic Center, anyone who feels like it is still free to park their car and dip their toes in the surf at Zuma or Corral. For much of the drive through east Malibu there isn't even a glimpse of the sea. Although, thanks to pressure from activists and the Coastal Commission, there are at least a few lateral easements like the one that just opened at Carbon Beach West. Photo © 2015 S. Guldimann

Access ways like this are great, but in a perfect world, we wouldn't need them because we would have preserved beaches and open space instead of building a wall of solid development. One of the public speakers at the Park LLC hearing stated essentially that there is so little open space left in Malibu that it doesn't mater what we build on it. That's the kind of thinking that got us where we are, not where we should be. Photo © 2015 S. Guldimann

We may not all agree with each other but we all know we have the right to share our views and concerns, wherever they fall on the spectrum of any given issue. The fact that developers know going in that they’re going to face tough opposition helps weed out some of the least sustainable and less desirable projects. The knowledge that the voters now have the power to weigh in adds another layer of protection to the community: all new projects need to offer sufficient public and community benefit if their promoters wish them to succeed.



The hill at Malibu Bluffs Park offers eastbound drivers the last view of Malibu's wide open spaces before descending into the Civic Center area and east Malibu...


...Where things start to look like this. 

Malibu has been badly burned—literally and figuratively—in the era immediately preceding incorporation, when development-mad officials at the county ran the show. We’re still living with the product of the feeding frenzy of poorly planned projects that filled the vacuum between cityhood being approved by the voters and incorporation being finalized. 


PCH east of the Malibu Pier is a showcase of late 20th century ugliness. How could anyone approve any of this? And yet, somebody must have thought it was a good idea. One could argue that the KFC is visitor serving and family owned, which is more than the office buildings can say. 
This is one place where some vertical landscaping might be a great idea.

Between the failed 1972 incorporation effort and the successful 1990 campaign, the newly formed California Coastal Commission, which was created by the Coastal Act of 1976, and the citizen watchdog organization the Malibu Township Council, founded in the 1940s in an effort to give the community a voice, were on the front line in the fight against the county and massive development interests.


The historic Rindge Railroad train shed, used after the railroad era ended as  retail space for an antique shop, Malibu's first bookshop, and a health food store, was torn down in the 1980s to make way for this Miami Vice-era building. It's now the backdrop for the Malibu Pier instead of this:

The Ridge Ranch train shed is the only building visible on Pacific Coast Highway—Roosevelt Highway—in this wonderful 1937 photo of a fisherman and his companion on the Malibu Pier, taken by Herman J. Schultheis, and preserved in the collection of the Los Angeles Public Library.

A January 17, 1985, Los Angeles Times article describes a county plan for 12,095 new housing units in Malibu—a plan that would have more than doubled Malibu’s current population. 


Some long forgotten county or city officials approved every single one of the buildings that make the drive through eastern Malibu generic and uninspired.   This is not the part of Malibu that they're talking about on the sign that says "27 miles of scenic beauty." 

“In rejecting the plan, the Coastal Commission said the amount of new development the county wanted to allow was excessive and labeled it an embarrassment,” the article states. The author describes Malibu as “a community racked by development pressures.”

This is 1985, and the article states “several of the [Coastal] Commissioners were troubled by several issues, most notably the capacity of Pacific Coast Highway, the intensity of commercial development, sewers and the role of Pepperdine University in Malibu’s overall growth.”

Sound familiar?

“[Chair Melvin] Nutter said that Malibu ‘probably has already exceeded’ the capacity of its infrastructure of roads and waste-disposal systems,” the article states.


A 1962 ad for the "Malibu Imperial" apartment complex at Carbon Beach. It was one of the first segments in the "Great Wall of Malibu," blocking the view of the ocean from the highway. 


The "Imperial" today, via Google Earth, still blocking the view of the sea and the sky, although not nearly as much as some of its more recent neighbors. 

Pushback is important. It forces developers to spend at least a little time thinking about what the community may actually find acceptable. No one owes anyone an apology for that. 

The county’s plan for the Civic Center area of Malibu in 1985 called for 2.5 million square feet of commercial space.

“It’s crazy to think of a buildout in the Civic Center equal to Century City,” Commissioner Marshall Grossman said. “We are dealing here with a treasure, a state treasure akin to Big Sur and the Carmel coast."


This is Cliff May's design for the Quarterdeck Club, a yacht harbor and marina that was planned for the Malibu Lagoon. The Malibu Post took an in depth look at this ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful project here. May was a legendary architect and this design is classic mid-century modern California style, but it would have been an ecological disaster for Malibu if this project was built. The debate isn't about the merits of the people involved, it is about whether a project is sustainable and right for the community. This one wasn't. 

Malibu is still a treasure. Thanks to the continued protection of the Coastal Act and the authority to weigh in to some extent at least on our own fate that was conferred by incorporation, we’ve been able to slow if not stem the tide. However, the current exponential explosion of projects in the Civic Center appears to many to have overwhelmed the system. That’s why Measure R passed by a landslide. It will be put to its  first test in November. If the proposed Park, LLC shopping center offers what Malibu residents want, it will be approved. If a majority of Malibu voters still have concerns over issues like size and traffic, it won't.



The endless cycle of legal battles in Malibu can seem Escher-eque in its own right, but the courts and the electoral process have provided the final defense for beleaguered conservationists. Proponents of Measure R hope that it, too, will prove to be a valuable tool to ensure that the projects that the voters pass are ones that are right for the community and balance environmental impact and community good with commercial gain. Image: M.C. Escher, Waterfall


Critics of the new building boom that could ultimately add more than a million square feet of development to the Civic Center area point out that once something is built, it can’t be unbuilt, and that every ill-conceived, awkward, inconvenient, ugly and oversized development in Malibu was approved by someone. 

The most egregious projects were constructed before Malibu became a city and adopted an LCP, but the sort of self-determination that can adequately moderate the sometimes overenthusiastic ambitions of developers is something Malibu residents have never entirely managed to achieve, despite the prolonged, fierce and eventually successful battle for cityhood. And that fight was brutal.



It's said that Malibu averages out to about 15 miles of beauty and 12 miles of over-developement. Photo © 2015 S. Guldimann

In 1987, with what would be the final Malibu incorporation bid looming, County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who represented the San Fernando Valley communities within the coastal zone, convinced the county Board of Supervisors to join a lawsuit to strip 6,000 properties in the Malibu area from the protections of the Coastal Zone.

Antonovich also opposed cityhood, actively worked to delay it, and "expressed concern that unless the incorporation is delayed, Pepperdine University's expansion plans might be "held hostage" by a new local government determined to block the sewer system," according to a March 30, 1990 Los Angeles Times article.


The delay provided an opening for all kinds of plans. One of these was Developer Sun Pacific Properties bid to build an 18-hole golf course, 52,000-square-foot clubhouse, 60 luxury homes, six tennis courts, and two restaurants on 339 acres owned by comedian and real estate speculator Bob Hope in Corral Canyon. The county approved the project. It was stopped after four years of litigation filed filed by Corral homeowners and conservation organizations, including the Sierra Club. 

"The county just liked to approve everything that came through," said Malibu City Councilmember  Missy Zeitsoff about the environmental victory in an October 3, 1991 interview in the L.A. Times. "Now they will have to undergo much more scrutiny."

Other projects, including the Ralph's shopping center, which included the demolition of the much loved and architecturally significant Colony Coffee Shop in 1988, were built during this time period despite public outcry.



A July sunset at Westward Beach, one stretch of the Malibu coast that belongs entirely to the people of California, and not to the highest bidder. Photo © 2015 S. Guldimann

A lawsuit was ultimately required to stop the county from stalling on the Malibu incorporation election. It took a final ruling from a judge to force the county to permit that election. 

"It is, some say, a referendum on whether the community long famous for its celebrities and surf will remain a semi-rural enclave, or, as some fear, become a resort on the order of Miami Beach," an April 6, 1990 L.A. Times article by Ron Russell stated. "The outcome is of critical importance to developers who own land in the area and environmentalists who want to preserve the slender stretch of Malibu coastline."


Those developers, their investors, and even the people who approved the projects—good, bad, and ugly—are gone and forgotten, but their legacy can’t be forgotten. Every person who drives through Malibu sees each building instead of seeing the sky, the mountains or the ocean that they replace, and experiences the cumulative impact of commercialization instead of the opportunity to fully enjoy what the City of Malibu's mission statement describes as  "a unique land marine environment."

That's why it's so important to get it right.


Unaware of the human strife just a mile away on land, dolphins play off the coast of central Malibu. It's a reminder that there's more at stake then traffic or the opportunity to make jokes about vertical landscaping. According to the City of Malibu's mission statement,
 "Malibu was founded on the principal that the people of Malibu are a responsible custodian of the area’s natural resources for present and future generations." Photo © 2015 S. Guldimann

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Driven to Distraction


A summer beach day on Pacific Coast Highway in the 1930s. The caption of this 
Security Pacific National Bank Collection photo states: "As the cars sit on the road, a few people are seen enjoying the sun and partaking in beach recreation." Some things never change. Photo: Los Angeles Public Library

Did you hear the one about the traffic consultant for the Park LLC shopping center development in the Malibu Civic Center area who thinks traffic on Pacific Coast Highway has decreased? The punchline of his report wasn’t met so much with laugher as with hoots of derision from the audience when the report was presented to the City of Malibu Planning Commission last month, which earned a reprimand from the commission chair.

That traffic report, and its stand-up-comedian-worthy statistics that claim there has been a decrease instead on an increase in traffic on PCH in recent years and that the proposed new mall will not have a significant impact on PCH traffic, will be part of the debate on Monday at Malibu City Hall, when the City Council hears the controversial Park LLC shopping center development proposal.



A typical summer beach day in 2014. While the population of Malibu has grown only by about a 1000 in the past 25 years, Los Angeles County has expanded from 8.8 million in 1990, to 10 million in 2014, and the number of summer beach visitors in Malibu has increased from 5 million in 1986 to 10 million in 2014. It's hard to reconcile those numbers with the Park LLC shopping center EIR, which found that traffic has decreased in Malibu. 
Photo © 2015 S. Guldimann 

Here's the developers rebuttal in the Environmental Impact Report to numerous criticisms of the traffic study: 

Several comment letters expressed concerns that the traffic counts utilized for the TIA were inadequate in so far as they underestimated baseline traffic counts by 25 percent or more when compared to traffic conditions described in previously prepared TIAs and compared to Caltrans traffic count data. In addition, several comment letters suggested that the traffic counts collected for the Project were inadequate because they show an overall trend of decreasing traffic in the City of Malibu. As a result, a number of comment letters requested the collection of new traffic counts in order to “achieve a more realistic assessment of impacts on Malibu roads.”



A postcard shows PCH in the 1950s, opposite the Malibu Pier, looking east.

Several, eh? There were 167 comment letters from individuals, and traffic was the main concern raised. One begins to understand the discrepancy in the traffic count numbers when the authors of the EIR describe all those comment letters as "several."

Here's another excerpt from the response to the comments:
page8image27896 page8image28056
The traffic counts used for the Project’s TIA were collected by the City of Malibu in July of 2012 in accordance with the City’s Traffic impact Analysis Guidelines. Two separate traffic counts were collected during the summer period (July 2012), one count on a Thursday and another count on a Saturday. The City decided to collect summer traffic counts after reviewing comments received during the Draft EIR Scoping Meeting (refer to Draft EIR Appendix 1.0) and after reviewing traffic count data previously collected in the City of Malibu traffic over a period of 16 years (1996 to 2012). These counts indicated that summer period traffic volumes and PM peak hour traffic volumes were generally higher than non-summer traffic volumes and AM traffic volumes.

The report provides a table summarizing traffic counts from 1996 to 2011:

Table 1(a) - Cross Creek Road/PCH - Weekday AM Peak Hour Counts

Project Name
Date
AM Peak Hour Volume
City Traffic Counts (Whole Foods)
Thurs., 7/12/2012
page9image26648
3011
La Paz Traffic Counts
Wed., 7/11/2012
3015
City CMP Traffic Counts
Thurs., 3/15/2012
3335
Pepperdine Traffic Counts
Tues., 3/25/2008
3278
Papa Jack's Commercial Traffic Counts
Tues., 5/8/2007
3584
La Paz Traffic Counts
4/2003*
3532
Malibu Bay Company Traffic Counts
7/2001*
3200
Malibu Bay Company Traffic Counts
Non-Summer 1997*
3201
Rancho Malibu Traffic Counts
Wed., 8/21/1996
3162

*Note: The exact traffic count dates were unavailable.

And concludes:

"This relatively small amount of variation in overall intersection traffic count volumes is common. These traffic count volumes were reviewed by City Staff and were considered to be within a reasonable range of tolerance and thus they provide a reasonably accurate representation of baseline traffic conditions."



Beach traffic in the late 160s or early 1970s. This image is one of several historic photos used as  murals on the walls at the Malibu Public Library.

It's disconcerting to think that major development decisions can hinge on a couple of casual traffic studies conducted for a couple of hours on two days, three years ago. Was it sunny or overcast on those two days? Warm or cold? Was there big surf or no surf? If this was a scientific or medical study the results would never pass peer review.


Another vintage image of PCH in the 1930s.  This one is a reminder of just how fragile PCH really  is and how precariously close it is to the ocean.

Much of the debate, including the traffic discussion, has been centered on a certain oversized pachyderm in the room—the presence of a Whole Foods market in the new shopping center.

Although the planning commission heard impassioned testimony from a speaker who said they must have a Malibu Whole Foods because chia seeds are too expensive at Malibu’s existing, family-owned health food store, PC Greens, and although this project has been called “Whole Foods in the Park” and “Whole Foods and the Park” the developer has yet to produce concrete evidence that a Whole Foods store will ever occupy this space.



It sounds nice, but so far there is concrete proof that this shopping center is ever even going to be a Whole Foods...


...And even if it is, in 20 or 50 years it could just as easily become something else. Photo: Disney/Pixar

The Planning Commission pointed out that even if a Whole Foods opens on the site, the decision is about a shopping center and not about a name brand business, because things come and go. 

We’ve had plenty of grocery stores, most of them long gone and forgotten. The first was at Las Flores and only open during the summer months, the second was the Colony Market. Remember the Malibu Market Basket? Mayfair at Point Dume? The Rainbow Grocery? Alexander’s? HOWS?


Remember the Colony and old Trancas markets? How about the Market Basket, Mayfair Market, Alexander's, Howes and the much loved and long lamented Rainbow Grocery, which was housed in the old Ridge Railroad engine shed? Grocery stores come and go. Right now we have four full service markets: Vintage, Pavillions, Ralphs, and PC Greens. Trader Joes in just 9 miles away for Point Dume residents, while Albertsons and Erewhon are 10 miles from central Malibu residents at the top of Malibu Canyon. Many Malibuite are returning to the old Malibu tradition of delivery. That Amazon Fresh truck that delivers anything and everything right to the customer's door is showing up all over Malibu all the time these days. Malibu residents aren't exactly withering away from lack of access to groceries.


The Park LLC is reportedly being funded by Fortress, LLC, one of the largest commercial real estate investment corporations in the world. It’s representative is a powerful man. He was displeased with the Malibu City Council at the July 13 meeting, because the council, in an effort to ensure that there will be sufficient time for everyone to share their thoughts on the project and for making a reasoned decision at a better hour than 3 am, elected to move the hearing to Monday, July 20 at 4 p.m. 

Here’s how the Malibu Times reported the incident

“I’ve seen a lot of your meetings on TV until one o’clock,” [Steve] Soboroff retorted. “People are just trying to stall.”

Soboroff then began to accuse Council of being swayed by an unnamed outside motive.

“What did you learn tonight to make this turn over?” Soboroff asked.

What the council learned was that there were more people at the meeting than could reasonably be accommodated during public comments that night. It wasn’t a conspiracy, it was a reasoned and thoughtful decision to find a time when everyone’s comments can be heard.

It’s a symptom of this kind of “them vs us” mentality that was also exhibited when the developer called for limiting the presentations to one hour each of pro and con. 

Perhaps he’s unaware that some people are neutral and simply wish to ask questions, and that others support elements of the project but may have concerns about aspects like traffic and the request for a variance that would allow the developer to count "green walls," planted presumably with succulents, as open space.


Traffic may be the main concern the the Park shopping center project, but there are other concerns, including the request for a variance that would allow the developer to use "green walls" and trellises" as part of the project's open space requirements. No one is arguing that the property owner has the right to build. The debate is over size, traffic impact, and how well the project fits into the environment and addresses the needs of the community.


Whether Fortress likes it or not, the people of this community have the right and the responsibility to weigh in. Malibu residents are the ones who are going to have to live with the aftermath of this project, long after these investors have moved on. That’s why its so important to take the time to get it right. 

In the 1950s the County had a vision for Malibu that included a freeway, a marina, golf courses, country clubs, and a population of 300,000 people. Projects like the Park LLC seem to be designed for that alternative reality that never happened. 


The reason this part of Malibu is called the Civic Center is part of that alternate reality, too. Here's the architect's rendering for the Malibu Civic Center, which broke ground in 1968. It was intended to house the administration and infrastructure services for that city of 300,000 people that was never built. All that's left today is the library and the name. The former sheriff's station  served briefly as a temporary Malibu City Hall in the early days of cityhood, and is scheduled to become a Santa Monica College Satellite campus, but the courthouse stands empty. This project was built by people who saw what they wanted to see and not what was really there. Photo: 1968 Malibu Business Guide and Directory, published by the Malibu Chamber of Commerce

The reality isn’t a burgeoning resort community of 300,000, it’s a small town with less than 13,000 residents on paper, and only 5000-6000 permanent year round residents. But it's also a town that receives millions of annual visitors, headed to the beach and the mountains that comprise the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

According to the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Lifeguard Division, beach attendance throughout Los Angeles County has climbed from 27 million in 1967, to nearly 73 million in 2014, with an all-time high of 76 million in 2012. Here are some numbers:

2014: 73,882,107

2013:  71,367,580 

2012: 76.298,601 

2011: 61,542,422

2010: 57,070,425

2009:  70,266,546

2008: 59,636,340

According to statistics presented by the LACFD to the City of Malibu's Safety Commission, in 2013, there was a summer total of 7.4 million visitors at Malibu beaches. In 2014, that number was 10.2 million, and that's just beachgoers, and just during the summer months. It doesn't include Z traffic, or resident road trips, or people headed for the mountain portions of the SMMNRA.

Adding an extra layer of concern to the already complicated traffic equation, sea level rise predictions indicate that this is a community that is ultimately going to shrink, not grow, as sea level rise nibbles away at the edges


This 2009 Pacifica Institute map shows the Civic Center area's current 100-year flood zone (light blue) and the flood zone after the projected sea level rise of coastal base flood + 1.5 meters (dark blue).

That's the Park LLC project site in yellow. If sea level rise predictions are accurate, it may eventual be a Whole Floods.

All the money in the world isn’t going to maintain the Great Wall of Malibu—the beach houses that extend from the Malibu Pier almost all the way to the Santa Monica Pier as the water levels rise, if predictions are accurate. Those predictions are one of the reasons its critically important to make sure the data used to develop traffic plans is accurate. PCH is the lifeline of the community. Anything that impacts this main artery is a serious concern for everyone who uses the highway, not just residents. 



It's hard to understand why anyone would want to built a large shopping center in an historic flood plain, but none of the current batch of developers live in Malibu and perhaps they are unaware that when things go bad they look like this. The image is a clipping from the Malibu Surfside News saved by my mom. Today, that corner location is occupied by MR Chows. In 1979, every shop was three feet deep in mud, despite the fact the Malibu Country Mart isn't in the current 100 year flood plain. My parents' gallery, located in the two-story building next store, fared better, but Cross Creek was transformed into an extension of Malibu Creek, and we had a repeat of this disaster in 1984 and again in 2003.

The Civic Center area is inhabitable now, but sea level projections indicate that in 50-100 years it may require major revetment and drainage measures to remain above water, regardless of whether the Park shopping center houses a Whole Foods or a Buy ‘n’ Large.

The combination of increased traffic and less coastline is a serious issue for Malibu. Any new development needs to adequately address traffic. This project hasn't done that. 




Beach houses were washed into the sea in 1943, and waves reportedly swamped low lying areas of Pacific Coast Highway, washing away sections of concrete, and stranding residents for weeks. With only one major route in and out of many areas, traffic is a serious issue in this community, one that developers seem determined to minimize. Photo: LAPL

Like Madame Pompadour reportedly said as the revolution rose like an angry tide, aprés nous, le deluge—after us, the flood. But while we’re waiting for the waters to rise, it would be nice if the corporate interests could respect and maybe even try to listen to the residents. Who knows, it could be the start of a beautiful friendship, or at least a thoughtful dialogue.


According to the Los Angeles County Fire Department Lifeguard Division, more than 10 million visitors braved PCH traffic last summer for a day at the beach. That doesn't include local traffic, or travelers headed for other destinations. And it doesn't include the other three quarters of the year. Photo © 2015 S. Guldimann 


The reason all those people have been willing to sit in traffic for hours on a summer day is for the opportunity to find peace, tranquility and most importantly, unspoiled beauty at the end of drive. Photo © 2015 S. Guldimann 

Everyone who is concerned about the future of Malibu needs to be at that meeting on Monday and to respectfully and succinctly provide input. But it’s OK to laugh at the project’s traffic consultant, he’s obviously there for comic relief. 



This is Bucket Boy. He stands in Legacy Park with his feet eternally mired in concrete, his back to the ocean, and his eyes fixed on the contents of his bucket instead of on the view of the mountains in front of him. He's the perfect symbol for the kind of single-minded push by outside interests for maximum buildout in Malibu that created the relentlessly ugly office buildings that line PCH from Las Flores to the Malibu Pier and helped fuel the push for cityhood, which we achieved in 1991, so the residents could have a voice in Malibu's future. This city is empower by the community to be the stewards of our natural resources and to ensure that this stretch of coast, the last Spanish land grant, the ancient home of the Chumash people, and the only city located entirely within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, remains "very near terrestrial paradise." Photo © 2015 S. Guldimann