School District Is Next to Mount an Assault on City’s Local Coastal Plan

• Claims Municipal Laws on Outdoor Lights Don’t Apply

BY SUZANNE GULDIMANN

Following in the wake of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy’s successful override of the City of Malibu’s Local Coastal Program, it appears that the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District is now also attempting to circumvent the municipality’s LCP.
According to the agenda for the June 25 board of education meeting, district staff received a letter from the City of Malibu dated June 10 informing them that the athletic field lighting planned for Malibu High School “is not a permitted use in the Institutional Zone, or any zone within the City of Malibu, with or without a conditional use permit.”
The letter, which addressed the district’s Mitigated Negative Declaration document, raised numerous concerns about the proposed lighting plan.
“The baselines used for assessing potential impacts to aesthetics, air quality, biological resources, noise, recreation and transportation/traffic are inaccurate insofar as the baseline conditions described incorporate unauthorized activities ( i.e., the operation of temporary night lights),” the letter states.
“Any environmental analysis that includes current illegal uses and activities in the baseline...is inconsistent with the California Environmental Quality Act and necessarily skews the analysis towards a finding of no impact.”
The letter repeatedly states that the lighting project would violate the City of Malibu’s Local Coastal Program and Land Use Plan, as well as city lighting and zoning codes.
The letter also challenges the MND’s accuracy regarding the location of neighboring residences—what the district says is 1000 feet, the city says is 550 feet. It also questions the district’s findings on biological resources, noise and air quality impacts and the impact on the “scenic and visual qualities of coastal areas” that are protected under the Coastal Act.
The district’s response to the city’s concerns was to draft a resolution to essentially override the city’s LCP and forge ahead with the plan on the basis that the MHS athletic field “is a classroom facility even though it does not have four walls.”
District staff state in the agenda that “per Government Code section 53094, the California Legislature has authorized school districts to exempt themselves from local zoning codes for classroom facilities.” The report goes on, “It is recommended that the board of education adopt Resolution 08-50 to exempt the Malibu High School Football Lighting Project from the City of Malibu’s zoning code because the project is not a permitted use therein.”
A representative of the City of Malibu’s planning department informed the Malibu Surfside News that the department has not received a coastal application at this time, but he added that he anticipates that the upcoming coastal permit application will be submitted to the city, and said that the city is aware that project’s Coastal Commission appeal is “just around the corner.”
The plan requires an amendment from the California Coastal Commission before it can implemented.
According to the district, MHS has used unpermitted lights for a limited number of nights per year since 2003, when a wealthy patron reportedly donated the funds for rental lights for homecoming night. Plans to install permanent lights as part of the district’s Measure BB improvement plan were revealed in August of 2008. The plans immediately raised the issue of legality when it was disclosed that the school had agreed to a special condition permanently prohibiting temporary or permanent athletic field lights in order to receive a Coastal Development Permit from the Coastal Commission in 2000.
The agenda states, “Unfortunately, neither the district nor the California Coastal Commission can locate the agreement, which may not have been ultimately executed.” However, the district has acknowledged that it has violated the permit’s lighting restriction.
Initially, Measure BB funds were tapped to pursue a Coastal Commission amendment to permit the temporary lights for the 2009-10 season. However, opponents to the project challenged the use of bond money allocated for safety and improvement projects to legalize a project that had never been permitted. Critics estimate that the temporary lighting permit project has cost the district some $100,000 in general funds.
The board will be voting on Thursday to authorize an additional $34,000 to the consultant firm of Cuthbertson and Associates to “expedite the CCC amendment process.”
The board will also be voting to adopt a Mitigated Negative Declaration developed by staff and consultants for the temporary lighting project. Once the resolution and MND are in place, the next step will be presenting the appeal to the Coastal Commission. Project supporters are hoping this can be accomplished before the start of the fall football season. Night games are already on the athletic program agenda.
The board of education’s decisions on Thursday are expected to be closely scrutinized by both City of Malibu officials and a growing coalition of Santa Monica parents who claim that Santa Monica schools are being disproportionately singled out for budget cuts and are calling for Malibu schools to shoulder more of the burden of the district’s estimated $12 million shortfall.