MALIBU, Calif.-
The City Council has agreed to develop a plan for hiking trails and campsites in this exclusive celebrity enclave, a move that could signal the end of a long-running legal battle over public access.
The council approved an agreement Wednesday to work with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Mountains Recreation Conservation Authority to develop a plan to improve the parks and trails system throughout the area.
The group will also consider allowing camping on a city-owned swath of land that is farther from multimillion-dollar homes than the conservancy had originally proposed.
“They did the right thing,” said Joe Edmiston, the conservancy’s executive director, who has long criticized the city’s residents for not supporting more public access.
Edmiston said he was reserving the right to go to the California Coastal Commission, the state agency that regulates development on the coast, if Malibu does not agree to a public access plan within 180 days.
Barbra Streisand donated her 22-acre estate to the agency in 1993. The conservancy opened its headquarters there and eventually began renting out the estate for weddings and garden tours to pay for maintaining its five houses and grounds.
Homeowners sued in 1999, and the conservancy eventually halted the events.
The agreement reached Wednesday will allow the conservancy to continue to use its headquarters at the Streisand estate for outreach programs. Weddings and other paid events will remain off-limits.
