Controversial MHS Field Lighting Project Requires State Coastal Panel Action

• Commission Amend Follows City OK

BY SUZANNE GULDIMANN

All of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s planned Measure BB improvements have to be reviewed by the City of Malibu’s Planning Commission, but plans to install permanent lighting at the school’s football field will also be reviewed by the California Coastal Commission, according to the city’s planning department.
Joseph Smith, the planner assigned to the project, helped to dispel some of the confusion generated by this complicated arrangement.
“It’s a bit complicated,” Smith told the Malibu Surfside News. “I’m aware of the confusion with this issue.”
Smith explained that because the original Coastal Development Permit issued by the Coastal Commission to the school when the athletic field was constructed included a special condition prohibiting temporary or permanent lighting, the school district must work directly with the Coastal Commission to amend the the previous CDP before proceeding with the lighting plan.
“The lighting restriction is under the Coastal Commission’s jurisdiction,” Smith said. “That condition still stands, but regardless if Coastal were to approve the amendment, we would still have to review the lights, [and] look at the property’s zoned uses; environmental, scenic and visual resources.”
Smith told The News that the school district, not the city, is the lead agency on the project’s Environmental Impact Report, and the district has not yet formally submitted its plans to the city.
“We have been in dialogue,” Smith said, describing it as the “pre-application process.”
“The [entire] project will receive full review by the city’s planning division and the planning commission for conformance with the city’s Local Coastal Plan,” Smith said.
In August of 2008, the district contracted with CAA Planning to “support preparation, coordination, filing and presentation of an amendment to CDP-04-99-276 to the California Coastal Commission in support of the field lighting portion of the Malibu High School Measure BB project in an amount not to exceed $7000.”
The field lighting plan, which includes a proposal for 70-to-80-foot lighting poles in a community with a 28-foot maximum building height limit, and the potential that the lights might be in use for up to 203 nights a year, has angered many Malibu Park area residents, who have been generally supportive of other aspects of the planned Measure BB improvements.