Pepperdine Gets OK for Expansion

The California Coastal Commission on Tuesday rejected its own staff’s recommendation and voted to allow Pepperdine University in Malibu to double its student body and nearly triple the size of its seaside campus.

Although several commissioners raised questions about the “serious environmental impacts” the university’s long-range development plan would have on the surrounding area, the panel voted 7 to 5 to allow Pepperdine to build nearly 2 million square feet of new campus facilities to house more than 7,000 students by the end of the century.

Pepperdine, a private liberal arts college, wants to build new student and faculty housing, a new business and management school, a student recreation center and other facilities. The development was opposed by Malibu’s leading environmental and political groups.

The coastal commission staff recommended that, in order to offset the impact of grading more than 3 million cubic yards of dirt needed for construction, the university build the new complexes in the area of campus already developed. However, the commission said that the university could construct the new facilities in an undeveloped area of the 830-acre campus.