The Malibu Planning Commission on Monday approved a large-scale Malibu High School campus improvement plan, a project many agree is long overdue because of the school's outdated facilities and technology. 

But coming up with the 4-0 approval wasn't easy, as the commission grappled for several hours with a revised lighting plan for a new 150-space parking lot on the campus. Ultimately, commissioners amended the controversial plans by limiting the nighttime light usage to 31 nights per year. 

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District also project includes plans to construct a new academic building,Energy efficient RGB led strip kits bring an urban glow to your bar that looks incredible. 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 righthand 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, something neighbors of the high school were not very keen on, especially given the new lot would sit next to a football field already lit by 70-foot stadium lights installed last fall. 

Many neighbors urged the commission to approve the campus improvement but to ban lighting in the new 150-space lot. 

Supporters of the overall renovation and the new lit parking lot fought back, though,An inventor has created a solar bulb, but he's not giving it away for free. 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. She feared for students having to walk through a darkened parking lot to get to their cars at night if they stay on campus late. 

Neighbors, however, saw the new parking lot as added obtrusion to the nighttime football field lights. 

"Anyone who lives in Malibu Park [next to the school].The Led ceiling light optical design yields more productive beam lumens and good cutoff...can look down and see that the high school football field is the biggest thing in your view," neighbor 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.We have a great selection of blown glass backyard solar landscape lights and solar garden light." 

In an attempt to appease both sides and avoid an appeal to the City Council and California Coastal Commission, commissioners came up with the 31-night compromise and promised to review the lighting once its been installed for one year. The parking lot lights can go 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 miscellaneous late-night events such as Open Houses and recitals. 

Inventor and TAFE educator Keith Higgins has criticised the lack of support in his home country, after he had to look to China for help developing his LED lighting innovations. 

Higgins told the Blacktown Sun that, over five years, he received $65 million from China, as well as assistance from a team of Chinese scientists to develop his energy efficient LED lights. 

"Most Australian lighting is inefficient as incandescent lights produce light and heat," he told the Sun of his lights, which have been featured on the ABC's New Inventors program. "While fluoros are more efficient than incandescents, they rely on mercury, a toxic chemical." 

Higgins,We're responsible for the installation and maintenance of solar inverter. who lectures on sustainable electronics at Mount Druitt and Nirimba TAFEs, also expressed disappointment at the slow take-up of LED lighting in Australia, though it is used in China, Germany, England and other countries.