Malibu architecture, inside the coastal zone.

Malibu is its own city, and all of it lies within the California coastal zone. Since its Local Coastal Program Land Use Plan was adopted in 2002, the City itself reviews and issues coastal development permits, rather than the Coastal Commission, which keeps jurisdiction over tidelands, submerged lands and public trust lands. Every project here is therefore judged against the City's own coastal rules before it is judged against anything else.

The other three are height, water and fire. A house is limited to eighteen feet above natural or finished grade, whichever is lower, and reaching twenty-four feet with a flat roof or twenty-eight with a pitched one takes site plan review, with beachfront lots measured on their own terms. Almost every property treats its own wastewater on site, so the septic field is designed with the house rather than after it, and installing a new system needs its own coastal permit. The entire city is a very high fire hazard severity zone, which sets the materials and details of everything exposed to the outside and requires fuel modification, landscape and irrigation plans before construction.