The Malibu City Council declined June 22 to adopt an emergency moratorium on new wireless telecommunications facilities, instead directing city staff and legal counsel, in consultation with an attorney representing residents, to finalize an alternative measure known as the "residential fix" for a possible vote at the council's July 13 meeting.
The reversal came after the city attorney's office warned that the proposed 45-day moratorium would likely violate federal law and could backfire by triggering automatic approvals of the very cell installations many residents are fighting.
City staff had prepared the moratorium, Urgency Ordinance No. 536U, at the council's June 8 direction. But Gail Karish of the city attorney's office told members that a 2018 Federal Communications Commission order bars state and local governments from imposing moratoria on telecommunications facilities, finding that such pauses violate Section 253 of the Communications Act by effectively prohibiting service. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the FCC order in 2020.
Karish said a local moratorium also would not stop the FCC's "shot clocks" federal deadlines of 60 to 150 days for acting on wireless applications. If the city paused applications and then missed those deadlines, she said, the applications could be "deemed granted" under federal and state law, approving the towers automatically and without city conditions.
"Although it potentially would be lawful under state law, it would conflict with the FCC moratorium order, and it would put the city at risk of potentially deemed-granted approvals," Karish said, recommending against adoption.
The debate unfolded against the backdrop of repeated wildfire disasters. The entire city lies within a very high fire hazard severity zone, and the 2025 Palisades Fire destroyed more than 700 structures and affected roughly a third of Malibu, compounding damage from the 2018 Woolsey Fire. Residents have raised alarms about lithium-ion backup batteries on utility poles, which Mayor Bruce Silverstein warned could spark or burn as more facilities are added, citing recent battery fires in the region.
Rather than a blanket ban, residents and their attorney have pushed the residential fix, which would designate residential zones as disallowed locations for wireless facilities. Under the proposal, a carrier would have to show through clear and convincing evidence that there is no technically feasible alternative before building in a neighborhood.
Silverstein pressed his colleagues to act immediately, arguing the city could adopt the fix as an urgency ordinance, even one labeled a moratorium, so long as it included that escape valve. "It's technically called a moratorium, but it's really not the kind of absolute moratorium that the FCC order speaks to," he said. "It's a moratorium subject to an out, and the out is exactly what the residential fix proposes."
The mayor, a lawyer, said his approach has always been to "find ways to get to yes," and he warned that delay tends to kill action. "When the council doesn't establish a specific deadline to do something, it goes into a black hole the minute they recess," he said, while acknowledging "the mayor position is nothing but ceremony."
Other members urged caution, saying a rushed, un-agendized ordinance could invite exactly the federal challenge the city was trying to avoid. Council member Steve Uhring said even the label was risky. "If you call it a moratorium, you're just sending a red flag up the post," he said. "You're waving a flag in front of the FCC." He wanted time for legal review "to make sure we know what the hell we're doing."
Council member Doug Stewart agreed, warning the measure would draw scrutiny from carriers and regulators alike. "This is going to be like a magnet by these cell companies, and if we don't have it done properly, we're going to get destroyed on this," he said, adding that the city would have "one chance to do this properly." He also questioned the fire rationale, noting no one had quantified how many cell towers cause fires nationally.
Council member Marianne Riggins sided with the cautious approach, while council member Haylynn Conrad pushed to confront carriers, saying "they can't just put up fire hazards all over our neighborhoods, we just burned down."
It emerged during the discussion that staff had vetted the residential-fix language with the residents' attorney several years earlier but shelved it over concerns it might delay a California Coastal Commission approval. Staff reported that 24 wireless applications were approved in February and March, with 12 later appealed by residents.
Reaching consensus, the council took no vote and directed staff and counsel to work with the residents' attorney on a legally sound version to return July 13.