Malibu Property Owner to Donate Beachfront Parcel to Public to Remedy Brazen Violations

In July 2024, the owner of two adjacent Broad Beach Road properties in Malibu sent excavators into public tidelands within the Point Dume State Marine Conservation Area and extracted sand, cobbles, and boulders from the beach and a rocky intertidal boulder field. The excavators stole material from the beach and packed it behind the owner’s private seawall as fill. They left a hole in the intertidal zone that is still there more than two years later. To get the equipment down to the water, the contractors pushed an unpermitted revetment seaward into a recorded public access easement, where it stayed for a year and a half. Meanwhile, a separate unpermitted private stairway had encroached into an access easement on the neighboring lot for roughly two decades.

Under the approved consent orders, the owner has agreed to remove the unpermitted revetment entirely and restore the excavated boulder field with rock matched in type and size to what was taken. In lieu of paying penalties, he has agreed to purchase and dedicate to the public an undeveloped oceanferont parcel at Big Rock Beach in Eastern Malibu, where the previous home burned down in the Palisades fire.

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This enforcement agreement exemplifies why the Commission’s enforcement authority is so critical to upholding the Coastal Act. Not even a Malibu billionaire is above the law. Without consequences, there would be nothing to stop others from stealing public sand and rock from our beaches and state tidelands.

Also, it’s not every day that an alleged violator agrees to dedicate an entire oceanfront property to the public for open space and recreation. The property dedication is a rare win for coastal access in Malibu, a city with a very privatized coastline despite its proximity to millions of Los Angeles residents. Miles of Malibu’s beaches have historically been inaccessible do to wall-to-wall private homes and a legacy of exclusionary practices. The beachfront parcel will be a meaningful addition to the public inventory, especially as homes that burned down along that stretch are rebuilt over time.

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