Readers React: If U2’s Edge loves Malibu so much, he should donate his land and stop trying to build

To the editor: It’s hard to feel sympathy for U2 guitarist David Evans (also known as The Edge), who purchased contested, environmentally fragile land for six times the amount that was paid for it a mere four years earlier. (“U2’s The Edge and his decade-long fight to build on a pristine Malibu hillside,” May 13)

Evans’ army of consultants should have done its homework. But upon finding itself thigh high in hotly contested Malibu soil, why didn’t the ostensibly progressive millionaire simply donate the land to the California Department of Parks and Recreation and reap a hefty tax deduction?

Everyone from Evans’ project director to the dubious members of the California Coastal Commission insist that Evans is just a nice guy trying to do the right thing. But how can the “right thing” involve taking advantage of the untimely death of one of the coast’s most successful guardians, Peter M. Douglas, while wasting millions of dollars and years of everyone’s time so that another rich guy can build himself another big house?

Evans is such a good guy? He should step up and donate the land to create the Peter M. Douglas California State Park.

Phoebe Millerwhite, Claremont

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To the editor: Looking at the designs of the five homes proposed for construction by Evans overlooking Malibu, and comparing how they would blend visually into their surroundings with the existing stuccoed monstrosities already on the hillside below, I’d consider his proposed development a far more visually sensitive improvement to the area.

Marcy Rothenberg, Porter Ranch

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To the editor: Your headline, “Faith moved a mountain,” seems erroneous to me. It technically should be “money” moved that mountain.

Without his enormous bank account, Evans’ personal dream to own and develop a pristine part of Malibu would have died long ago. Adding insult to injury is the unnecessary scope and size of the five houses —from 7,000 to nearly 13,000 square feet.

Are there no massive cliffs in Ireland where Evans can develop his own private neighborhood for the super rich?

Peggy Jo Abraham, Santa Monica

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To the editor: I was in a Starbucks when I read your article about Evans finally getting his way in Malibu, and I had to raise the newspaper in front of my face in order to rant about him.

I can’t ever remember me doing that. Still somebody looked my way as if I was in some sort of distress.

Moses Hacmon, the project manager, speaks in terms of carving up the mountain as if it were a sculpture. This is just a beginning. Now that the Coastal Commission has green-lighted this project, it opens the floodgate to the carving up of Malibu wholesale.

Mike Letteriello, Long Beach