Plans by Pepperdine University to install new field lights at an intramural soccer field overlooking the university’s main campus have met with resistance from the staff of the California Coastal Commission (CCC), which is recommending the commission deny the proposal at its meeting next Wednesday.
Staffers say the proposal, which would add six 80-foot stadium light fixtures to replace four existing 28-foot fixtures at what is known as the Marie Canyon field, would harm a nearby environmentally sensitive habitat area (ESHA). But university officials say the lights are actually less harmful to the environment than the existing fixtures, and are crucial to providing future recreational opportunities to students.
“The [new] lights were designed according to the most stringent dark sky principles and meet best management practices to minimize sky glow,” Rhiannon Bailard, associate vice president for Pepperdine’s Center of Sustainability, wrote in an email to The Malibu Times. “It seems counterintuitive but the higher the light pole, the less impactful the light as the increased height allows for steeper aiming resulting in the light going only where you want it.”
But the CCC staff disagrees, citing an assertion from in-house biologist Jonna Engel who argues the proposed lights would harm surrounding ESHA.
“The installation of new, permanent sports field lights in Marie Canyon as proposed…would pose a substantial risk of significant, adverse impacts to sensitive coastal resources that would significantly degrade adjacent, environmentally sensitive habitat areas,” a staff report states.
Engel wrote that prior development in the Marie Canyon area, including the conversion of the field from equestrian use to recreational use, has caused a weed infestation and surge of other non-native species. Further development, which the installation of the lights would fall under, could further degrade conditions, Engel wrote.
Pepperdine’s lighting fixture proposal is part of its ongoing campus expansion plan, called the Campus Life Project. The project would increase athletic stadium seating by almost 2,000 and on-campus housing by 468 beds. All told, the university plans to add nearly 400,000 square feet of new development on 365 acres of existing campus land. In addition to the extra student housing and stadium seating, outdoor lighting would be added to the women’s soccer field, and a welcome center and extra parking lot for the School of Law would also be added.
The Marie Canyon field is located above the school’s two other outdoor fields, one used for baseball and the other for soccer and track-and-field sports. The field was used for equestrian purposes between 1981 and 1999, when it was converted to an intramural field.
Bailard said the university was “disappointed” in the staff ’s recommendation against the lights, noting that in addition to adding modern lighting technology, the lights are part of a larger lighting plan by the university that will significantly reduce lighting impacts.
But given its location away from the school’s more centrally located baseball and soccer fields— where new stadium lights will likely be allowed—the commission staff argues Marie Canyon is not a conducive area for eight-story poles. Plus, staff believes Pepperdine put in the current smaller fixtures—way back in 1984—without the CCC’s consent.
“The existing Marie Canyon field lights were installed in 1984 without any Coastal Act authorization,” a staff report states.
Bailard denied the assertion.
“The existing lights were installed pursuant to a Coastal Development Permit approved by the California Coastal Commission prior to their 1989 approval of the University’s Long Range Development Plan,” she wrote.