The Malibu Planning Commission on Monday voted 4-0 to approve a large-scale Malibu High School campus improvement plan many see as long overdue because of the school’s outdated facilities and technology.
The commission grappled for several hours over a lighting plan for a new 150-space parking lot on campus, eventually amending the controversial plans to limit nighttime light usage to 31 nights per year.
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District project also includes plans to construct a new academic building, renovate several existing classrooms, create new student drop-off and pick-up lanes, two new tennis courts, a new quad for students and a 700-foot right-hand turn lane on Morning View Drive that would accommodate 195 cars.
But the overriding issue was the nighttime parking lot lighting proposal, which calls for the installation of 12-foot occupancy/ movement-sensored LED fixtures throughout the new lot.
The revised lighting plan was recommended by an International Dark Sky expert, who helped district staff reduce campus lighting plans by more than 60 percent. Still, several neighbors of the high school objected to the lights, especially given the new lot would sit next to a football field already lit by 70-foot stadium lights installed last fall.
Many urged the commission to approve the campus improvement but with a ban lighting in the new lot, set to be built on the upper part of campus near the Boys and Girls Club.
“Anyone who lives in Malibu Park [next to the school]…can look down and see that the high school football field is the biggest thing in your view,” Terry Lucoff told the commission. “And the new parking lot is equal in size to that football field. They are going to take that football field and double it in size and add lighting to that. This is an ill-founded plan.”
Supporters of the overall renovation and the new lit parking lot fought back, though, arguing that student safety is paramount, and one of the ways to ensure it is to light the new parking lot at night.
“An unlit parking lot is not a good idea for high school girls,” one woman said.
Seth Jacobson, chair of Malibu High’s fundraising organization the Shark Fund, accused opponents of nitpicking.
“I fear that no matter what the Planning Commission does, no matter what the school district does, the opponents will come up with yet another reason to oppose this plan,” Jacobson said.
The debate over the lights reignited memories of another lighting controversy that resulted in ongoing litigation—the installation of the four 70-foot field lights at Malibu High’s football field last year. The community group Malibu Community Alliance (MCA), which includes many of the neighbors who spoke Monday, filed a lawsuit against the city and school district over the field lights. A trial in the case is pending.
“I don’t want this [improvement plan] to end up in court,” Planning Commission Vice Chair Mikke Pierson said.
Commissioner Roohi Stack, whose daughter attends Malibu High, defended the necessity for a lit parking lot, citing several school nights when science events, music recitals and athletic games have overlapped and often let out close to 10 p.m.
“Every week there’s something going on,” she said.
In an attempt to appease both sides and avoid an appeal to the City Council and California Coastal Commission, and possibly litigation, commissioners came up with the 31-night compromise and promised to review the lighting once it’s been installed for one year. The parking lot lights can be on each of the 16 nights the football field lights are allowed to be in use until 10:30 p.m., plus 15 additional nights for other evening events such as open houses and recitals. The lot will be required to close at 10:30 p.m. The commission is also requiring the school district to retrofit 271 outdoor lighting fixtures with LED bulbs.
MCA leader Cami Winikoff said MCA wouldn’t oppose the amended plan, as long as the school district sticks to the 31 nights and also retrofits lighting in two other school parking lots to match the technology on the new lot.
School community members were disappointed that a debate over lighting underscored what they see as a much larger issue. The renovations are to be funded by Measure BB, a $267-million measure that passed more than six years ago and has funded renovations currently underway at Santa Monica High School and Lincoln and John Adams Middle Schools in Santa Monica. Malibu High was allotted $33.5 million from the measure.
