City leadership in Glens Falls may finally have hashed out a draft of a residential exterior lighting law that will pass muster and be added to the city’s code. The city has been debating and revising the law for months.
During a workshop on the matter Tuesday evening March 30, the mayor, common council members, the city’s code enforcer, the fire chief and a couple members of the public agreed in principle to final language.
“I think we should stick this on the next agenda,” Councilor-at-large Jim Clark Jr. said near the end of the 75-minute meeting.
A main focus of the workshop was the notion that only lights considered a "nuisance" by neighbors will be subject to investigation and possible action by the city.
[Read our earlier coverage here and here.]
Under the revision of the March 24 draft of the law, exterior lightbulbs of 60 watts or fewer (that is, 900 lumens or less) are generally considered to be compliant even if some light from them spills onto a neighbor's yard.
Spotlights and floodlights may have bulbs of over 900 lumens, but they must be shielded or aimed in such a way as to light the person’s own property only without spilling light onto another person's property, onto the street or into the night sky.
[To read the March 24 draft, click here.]
Mayor Bill Collins and the city’s Building Inspector and Code Enforcement Officer Kris Vanderzee have said on numerous occasions that just one or two people in the city have lights on their property that are very bright and “trespass” on a neighbor’s property and even into the second floor windows of a neighbor’s house in one case.
However, discussions between those neighbors have gone nowhere, and the city has not had a law to help in these situations. City officials have cited this problem as a reason to create this law in the first place.
“Most people are trying to be accommodating to their neighbors,” said Third Ward Councilor Diana Palmer who chairs the city’s Buildings and Codes Committee and has been ushering this law into existence.
Since the law is intended to curtail only those lights that are considered to be a “nuisance," any current lighting fixture or bulb is legal until a person complains.
“If it [the light] stays on your property you can do what you want,” Vanderzee said at one point.
“Our objective is compliance,” he said. He said that as code enforcement, he is not looking for nonconforming lights, and he hopes not to escalate the issue but to find a solution that both neighbors can live with if the city determines the light is a nuisance.
At the same time, local lawyer Michael Borgos and Nicholas Collins (no relation to the mayor) have pushed back over the last six or eight weeks saying the law is too vague and puts too much power in the hands of the code enforcement officer.
“I’m pleased with the committee’s receptiveness to proposed changes,” Borgos said after the meeting. He had said during the meeting that he recognized that the city was attempting to improve a particular type of problem and that a code might be the best option to do that.
It helps, he said, that the city was clarifying that the intent of the code applies only to nuisance lighting.
Nicholas Collins agreed that the intent of the law is important, but he said he was looking to make sure the code is written in a way that the next code enforcement officer will understand and follow in a similar fashion. He said he felt more confident after the workshop.
The law applies to residential buildings. Commercial and industrial property must conform to the site plan that was approved when the property was developed. A plan for lights should have been part of the site plan. Material changes to a site plan would go back to city committees for approval.
The city school system lives outside the city code in this instance and therefore does not need to conform. The city's street lights can be adjusted if neighbors around the light have a complaint.
The mayor's office is making sure the procedure is followed to get the law before the full common council as soon as possible.