By Will Collette
Once again, the Planning Commission has the proposed Dark Skies ordinance on their agenda for their Wednesday, December 28 meeting. This ordinance would regulate lighting in Charlestown
This ordinance was done and ready to go to the Town Council – at least according to Planning Commissar Ruth Platner – last July.
But if you read the documents attached to this agenda item on Clerkbase, it looks like the Planning Commission has flubbed its assignment and will be going back to Square One.
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| Simple approach - hooded outdoor lamp |
According to Town Planner Ashley Hahn's Dec. 9 memo, Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero recommends throwing out the ordinance that was completed last July. Instead, he recommends going with a version similar to Tiverton’s. The Charlestown
Even though Tiverton has its own Clerkbase system, I could not find the Tiverton materials referenced in Ashley Hahn's memo and this material is not included in the materials for the Charlestown Planning Commission meeting. But apparently, Tiverton uses an entirely different way of determining what lighting complies – applying a foot-candle measurement, rather than relying on lighting design – and places the enforcement duty on the Police Department, as well as the Housing Inspector.
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| More high tech - and expensive |
Maybe there’s some logic to having the Police enforce town lighting regulations. After all, they carry guns and could shoot out the offending fixtures. But is that what we want? And do we expect our Police officers and our Housing Official to carry around foot-candle gauges to determine who is naughty and who is nice?
I’m sure Peter Ruggiero’s intervention is well-intended, but I wonder how helpful it is. It appears to throw a monkey wrench into the long-delayed ordinance process.
Maybe the whole idea of having such an ordinance needs to be re-visited. After all, our own town lawyer questions how the draft ordinance is framed and our Building Official questions whether he can enforce it. We haven't yet heard from Chief Shippee if he likes the idea of his officers needing to shoot out non-compliant light fixtures, but my guess is he probably won't like that idea.
In the meantime, Platner is trying to get everyone in town to come out to see a movie, “The City Dark,” that talks about the problem she and her Commission just can’t seem to figure out how to solve.
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| Effective, compliant commercial lighting |
When the Planning Commissioners finished their work last summer, they talked about the ways they were going to make it easier for town property owners to comply.
They had plans to put information about what dark sky-friendly lighting fixtures looked like on the town website, along with information on where to buy them.
Town Council President Tom Gentz said that he had found a very inexpensive way to retrofit outside lights and wanted that information posted on the web as well.
The idea was, pass the ordinance and also give Charlestown
Instead, we’re offered a movie.
Well, since the Planning Commission can’t seem to get the ordinance done and can’t even follow through on its promise to put information on compliant lighting on their web site, then it’s up to Progressive Charlestown.
Let’s start with the basics. The international group that is solely focused on this issue is the IDA – the “International Dark-Sky Association.”
They explain this issue in extraordinary detail. For us in Charlestown
The IDA also has an exhaustive list of approved manufacturers and fixtures, distributors and dark skies-friendly devices.
The IDA does not list prices or actually sell the devices, but their directory is a great place to start. My only disappointment was that very few of the lamps bear the Energy Star label.
If you Google “dark sky lighting fixtures,” you’ll get a great selection of hits for companies that sell the lighting, and you can get finer detail – i.e., specific types of lamps with prices, if you refine your Google search to “shopping.” It will also give you comparison prices.
Dark sky lighting does not need to be a complicated, highly technical concept. Dark sky friendly lighting at its simplest means directing the light where it needs to go, rather than let it radiate into the sky. Designing the lights so they are hooded is the simplest form of dark sky lighting. Some of the IDA brochures, above, even show you how to do your own inexpensive DIY retrofits.
The proposed Ninigret Park lighting discussed at the December 12 Council meeting was much more complex – those lamps are engineered not only to be hooded against light escaping into the sky, but to use mirrored surfaces to gather and focus light on the playing fields at the Park.
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| Curved panels for a dark sky retrofit |
Council President Gentz said he had found inexpensive outdoor lighting retrofits where you could convert an outdoor lamp into a dark sky friendly fixture. That information was also supposed to go on-line, but apparently never did.
I’m not sure if this is what Councilor Gentz had in mind, but for around $20, you can retrofit an outdoor light fixture by sliding panels behind the parts of the lamp illuminating areas that don’t need to be illuminated. You can find curved panels ($21) here, and straight ones ($19) here.
The Planning Commission doesn’t handle many issues that are more popular than protecting the dark sky. The only other issues that seem to be more popular in Charlestown