LOS ANGELES - Officials for the state agency that oversees coastal development has for a second time recommended denying a controversial development proposal led by U2 guitarist The Edge for a cluster of mansions overlooking Malibu.

California Coastal Commission staff on Friday recommended that the board reject the project's application at its June meeting. In February, officials made the same recommendation before the item was pulled from the agenda at the request of the musician and his partners. At the time, project manager Jim Vanden Berg expressed surprise but said he believed they could work with staff to "clarify misunderstandings."

The proposal involving the musician, whose real name is David Evans, includes five multilevel homes ranging from 7,220 to 12,785 square feet to be built 156 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains. Project designers have said the homes will be Gold LEED Certified and the guitarist has said the mansions will be some of the most environmentally sensitive in the world.

Opponents of the project, including the National Park Service, however, have argued that the project will have considerable biological and visual impacts in such sensitive habitat. The musician and his partners recently appeased the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which had opposed the project on these grounds, after giving the agency more than $1 million toward funding and other services.

A major sticking point for Coastal Commission staff, which suggested building fewer homes on the site, is the belief that the entire development proposal is being co-ordinated by The Edge. Instead of individual property owners proposing to build a single home on each of their lots, they believe the musician wants to build five mansions on a single piece of property.

In their report, staff argued that the current owners are all working together, co-ordinating the development which has a single project manager, single architect, single website and, until recently, a single agent that came before the commission. The report also pointed to the deal the owners collectively struck with the mountains conservancy.

Staff claims the original principals in the project, who were all connected to the musician, changed in 2010 after staff said they planned to show related ownership. The report said the applicants have declined to provide them with the various partnership agreements. The names of the property owners, which were submitted to the commission late last year, include the guitarist, as well as family, friends and business partners.

Commission staff and representatives for the property owners could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.