Building Moratorium Set to Lapse : Development: The squabbling City Council again fails to agree on how to extend it. Many fear a stampede by developers to obtain project permits.

MALIBU — The Malibu City Council on Tuesday failed, yet again, to agree on how to extend the city’s controversial building moratorium, the linchpin of the new administration. Unless the council reaches a consensus at an emergency meeting called for Friday, the moratorium will lapse at midnight Sunday.

If the council allows the moratorium to lapse, all construction, including commercial and multi-family projects, will be allowed to proceed.

“It would be a disaster,” said Barna Szabo, an attorney active in the battle for cityhood. “It would release the floodgates for development to come crashing down.”

Even developers were glum. “It should be great news for us,” said Brady Westwater, a real estate agent who has led the battle against the moratorium. “But I care about this city. All it shows is that there is a gridlock of personalities that is hurting everybody and confusing policy.”

Michael Jenkins, Malibu’s city attorney, warned the council that the demise of the moratorium would make it difficult for the city to function or to enforce its slow-growth mandate.

If the moratorium expires, Jenkins said, city staff would be unable to handle the stampede of developers that would probably rush to complete projects and begin new ones. Moreover, he said, it would be difficult legally to enact another moratorium later. Jenkins said the moratorium is essential to give the city breathing room while it puts together a general plan for development.

“If you do not extend the moratorium, you will be faced with an impossible situation, a totally chaotic situation,” Jenkins said.

Westwater agrees. “There will be a rush of people trying to get permits from the city and trying to get their projects moved ahead as expeditiously as possible,” he predicted.

Tuesday’s meeting was the latest in a series of clashes between two factions of the council that have, for the past several weeks, split 3 to 2 over how to extend the moratorium. The extension of the ordinance is considered an urgency measure and therefore by law requires a majority of four votes for passage.

Since the the moratorium passed unanimously March 28, the real estate community has been pressuring the council to exempt the 400 to 500 single-family homes affected by it.

Tuesday’s meeting was the council’s third attempt to combine two rival programs: an approach championed by Mayor Walt Keller and Councilwoman Carolyn Van Horn that would exempt only single-family homes that already have building permits, and an approach suggested by private consultants hired by Councilman Larry Wan that would phase in exemptions for other single-family homes as well.

Council members jettisoned three different amendments, at times confusing their own staff members, who had not read these latest incarnations of the ordinance.

The city attorney pointed out that there were few differences between these amendments. “I’m having a hard time understanding what you’re arguing about,” Jenkins said.

Councilman Mike Caggiano tried one last time to bring the council together, but was interrupted by Councilwoman Missy Zeitsoff. “Forget it,” she said. She called to the audience full of developers, realtors and homeowners, “The moratorium’s off, guys!”

“Thanks!” several of them shouted back.

Mayor Walt Keller pounded his gavel and called a recess.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Wan said during the break. “I never know what to expect with this council.”

About all the council agreed on, shortly after midnight, was to hold an emergency meeting Friday. “It’s driving me crazy,” Jenkins muttered to Zeitsoff.

Zeitsoff said she was optimistic that the council would extend the moratorium Friday, although she had no idea how. “We’ve learned something tonight,” she said.

But Caggiano disagreed. “All we’ve learned is to stall,” he said.