Coastal Commission creates new eastern Malibu public beach in fine settlement Play

The California Coastal Commission on Thursday created a new public beach in eastern Malibu by giving a Broad Beach landowner a reduced fine for having brazenly stolen sand and rocks to shore up his retaining wall.

By an 8-0 vote, the commission accepted a vacant beachfront lot that the landowner purchased in eastern Malibu, just east of the old Moonshadows site. The landowner, Mark Attanasio, could have been fined $12 million.

Attanasio paid $2 million for the burned-out lot, which is little more than a rocky cliff below PCH, a cluster of burned-out wooden poles and crashing surf where a house used to perch.

The deal was accepted even though state officials said the beachfront cliff came with a buried septic tank and other hazardous debris, which will have to be cleaned up at a cost of between $1 million and $2 million at some point in the future.

The City of Malibu was not informed of the pending deal by the Coastal Commission, nor was it informed by Attanasio's lawyer, Kenneth Ehrlich, before the meeting.

Ehrlich told the commission that "the city of Malibu seems perfectly fine and understands the consequences of this, and at least by their silence." He told the commission that the city's silence "can be categorized as — overt support."

In the days leading up to the meeting, the Coastal Commission refused to tell the public where the new public beach will be. KBUU broke the news Thursday that it will sit two lots to the east of the ruined beach poles that used to support Moonshadows restaurant.

The park will be west of Big Rock, at the eastern end of the straightaway in front of the old Moonshadows site.

Although Coastal staff inferred that it would be the only coastal access point for six miles of eastern Malibu beachfront, neighbors pointed out that both ends of Moonshadows were public accessways dating back decades.

Coastal officials said that a "receiving agency" would take control of the state beach and develop it for the public's use at some point in the distant future. Left unsaid was that the receiving agency would most likely be the MRCA, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, which has a dodgy record running other beach access points and trailheads in the region.