Planning Commission Wrestles with Limits on Athletic Field Lighting

• One Panelist Says Some CCC Members May Have to ‘Die’ Before City Can Get Its Way

BY SUZANNE GULDIMANN

The City of Malibu’s Planning Commission appeared to indicate that the city has little intention of honoring a Local Coastal Program amendment that would permit limited nighttime athletic lighting at Malibu High School.
That seemed to be the message from three of the four planning commissioners present at the Feb. 16 meeting, when the resolution to amend the LCP to permit 16 nights of lighting to accommodate the school’s football program, that was approved 3-1 by the planning panel in January, was brought back for what should have been the simple formality of sending the resolution to the city council, but instead erupted into a furious debate.
At one point, it appeared that the resolution would fail entirely—the vote was tied 2-2, with Commissioners John Mazza and Joan House in favor of approving the resolution and Regan Schaar and Ed Gillespie opposed. Commissioner Jeff Jennings resides near the school and had recused himself on the issue.
“This whole thing is too restrictive,” Schaar said, reiterating her position from the January discussion, when she was the dissenting vote. “It gives all the power to the Coastal Commission. I don’t agree with it.”
Gillespie, who is running for city council, and had voted to pass the resolution in January, said that he had an epiphany while volunteering at a father-daughter dance. “As I watched these kids with their dads I thought about Commissioner Schaar, that our city is not kid-friendly. It’s clear that the Coastal Commission will not allow more than 16 nights, I think they made that clear. It’s also clear to me that we must do everything in our power to make certain that our city is kid-friendly. Whatever is in our power to make Malibu more kid-friendly, I’m for 100 percent.”
“I agree with everybody here, but I’m also being a realist,” Commissioner House said. “I think that to deny this is not in good stead. “We’re probably going to have to wait for some of the Coastal Commissioners to die off, the superintendent of schools to move away and things, just life, to move on.”
“Kids are the most important product of this city,” House continued. “ I’d much rather see football games there. Let some of the Coastal Commission die and the change will happen.” House described how she had created the city’s Parks and Recreation Department when she was on the City Council. “I wanted a Parks and Rec director and no one supported it. We’ve changed a lot.”
“I think the important thing here is that there was a lot of compromise made by the audience [at the January meeting],” Commissioner Mazza, who is also running for the city council, said. “There were two basic factions, but the one thing that what I will call the school faction wanted was to move the process along, and that if they didn’t hurry, there would be no season next year. What happens if we pass this resolution is it goes to the city council and they can make those same arguments again. If we don’t pass it tonight, I’m assuming it’s either dead or it gets put back on the schedule.”
The meeting briefly deteriorated into complete disorder at that point, with Chair Gillespie repeatedly calling for order and Schaar, who apparently had not watched the Coastal Commission meeting where approval of the lights was unanimously denied, continuing to demand that the 16-day limit be removed from the LCP. “I don’t know where the number 16 came from. We need more flexibility if we want to change it,” Schaar indicated.
“I understand what you are saying,” Mazza said. “But the only thing we can do is memorialize the resolution.”
The city planner confirmed that changing or eliminating the 16-day restriction would require a new publicly noticed meeting.
“It should be 365 days of lights a year,” Schaar said, continuing to object. “I think it should be every day of the year.”
“It would be devastating not to move this on,” House said to Schaar, offering to go to the city council meeting with Schaar and present the case for unrestricted lighting. “A half a loaf is better than none.”
“Malibu needs to be a sovereign city and not go to Coastal,” Gillespie said, but he voted to support the resolution, after Mazza reminded the panel that Schaar's position would be included as a minority report in the resolution and that additional discussion could take place at the city council meeting.
Malibu High School has used temporary lights for a small number of football games and practices during the past seven years. Plans to install permanent lighting that could potentially have been in use as many as 208 nights a year attracted massive opposition from West Malibu residents and revealed that neither temporary or permanent athletic lighting is permitted in Malibu, and that a special condition prohibiting lighting had been placed on the school property as part of the 1999 development permit from the Coastal Commission.
The school district opted to bypass the City of Malibu, passing a resolution in July of 2009 that exempts the district from municipal code, and took their request for lighting directly to the Coastal Commission, where it was unanimously denied.
The matter was then brought to the city, where the 16-night plan appeared to be viewed as an acceptable compromise by many of the interests involved in the debate.
The lighting LCP amendment will go before the city council its March 22 meeting.