Editor’s note: Did we fool anyone? Wind energy isn’t coming to Malibu… that we know of.
Plans for proposed City Hall solar panels were placed on the agenda for the upcoming Planning Commission meeting to take place Monday, April 8, with one notable addition: wind turbines will be added to “harness wind as well as solar energy” in the “ideal location” of Malibu.
Staff is recommending commissioners approve the plans, which include the addition of a 900-foot wind turbine to be located at Malibu Bluffs Park as well as smaller 600-foot turbines along Zuma Beach, which will provide energy for all traffic signals in Western Malibu.
“The addition of a commercial wind turbine to help light City Hall will make Malibu a leader in green energy amongst California cities,” reads the staff report, available on the City of Malibu website.
The turbine will bring energy costs at City Hall down to $0 per year, and some at the city are already making plans about how to use the unprecedented energy the turbine will create — one idea being “disco nights” at the Malibu Senior Center.
“We have already taken an unofficial poll amongst seniors who frequent the tea parties and craft events,” said Clare Lee Faké, assistant programming specialist at the Malibu Senior Center, “and these seniors really want a night off from teaching important life lessons, sharing priceless wisdom and creating timeless memories spending time playing with their grandkids.”
“They really just want to party, and now we can finally afford to keep the Senior Center open 24 hours a day,” Faké added.
The idea for the turbine came from local engineer and Solvang native April Tåber, who said seeing the historic wooden windmill in downtown Solvang inspired her in her youth.
“I’m pretty sure they use that windmill for energy, or, I don’t know, grinding wheat into flour or something,” Tåber told The Malibu Times. “Now that I live in Malibu, I figure, why don’t we do something like that here.”
The turbine, which could be erected in Bluffs Park as early as this summer, should it pass Planning Commission guidelines, will be nothing like the Solvang windmill.
Views are not expected to be blocked, as the turbine will be “painted blue to match the sky and water.”
Though it’s estimated to cost around $223,000, officials are confident the energy savings will make the installation worth the high starting cost.
“If seniors pay $5 to enter disco night, we’ll be making upwards of $75 per week,” Faké said. “That adds up.”
Some Malibu stakeholders, who have worked tirelessly to preserve the coastline from any structures above two stories, responded to the plan with complete despair.
“I give up,” said a resident who asked not to be named. “I literally can’t. I cannot.”