Planning Commission Rejects Storage Yard

The LADWP project on Corral Canyon drew widespread criticism.

Holly Bieler · August 6, 2026

The Malibu Planning Commission unanimously rejected LADWP's bid to run a utility storage yard in Corral Canyon for the next seven years, ordering the agency to restore the site within two months (before the rainy season arrives).

The yard, on a graded pad off Corral Canyon Road about a half mile up from PCH, was being repurposed as a staging area by LADWP, for materials in its ongoing undergrounding of utilities.

Plans called for eight storage containers, six portable toilets, and up to six trucks hauling loads to the Palisades between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., six days a week.

The proposal drew roughly 26 letters of opposition and a packed chamber Monday night. Residents of the more than 220 households above the site, served by a single winding road in and out, warned that trucks and stored materials could trap them during a wildfire evacuation.

Attorneys for the Malibu Township Council argued the project was never legally eligible for the emergency permit that first authorized it.

That emergency permit, granted in March to speed LADWP's fire recovery work, expired in June when the required follow-up permit wasn't approved in time.

LADWP's incident commander told the commission the yard was essential to the rebuild, saying he sees the emergency daily in anxious Palisades residents. But the commission was unmoved, denying the project on the grounds that its environmental review was inadequate and that this type of yard is prohibited in a rural residential zone.

The agency can appeal the decision to the City Council. In the meantime, the partially graded site, where work halted in June, must be returned to its original condition.