Why It's So Bright at Night? Interview with Councilmember Dee Durham of New Castle County, Delaware

How can one county lead the charge against light pollution while balancing development and environmental preservation? Second District New Castle County, Delaware Councilmember Dee Durham joins host Bill McGeeney to discuss the successful passage of Lighting Ordinance 23-122, aimed at reducing light pollution through smart lighting regulations.

Councilmember Durham explains the regulations on specific lighting types such as spotlights and floodlights, and the importance of shielding to reduce glare and enhance energy efficiency.  We'll highlight the challenges of implementing Ordinance 23-122 and how the county plans to enforce this ordinance. 

Chapters

• 1:07 Understanding the breadth of Ordinance 23-122
• 32:42 Appendix-A, Ordinance 23-122

Transcript

Bill McGeeney: 0:00

Welcome to another why it's so Bright at Night, and this is the subset series that I put together just randomly doing one-on-one interviews with people that I come across in the news. This go-around we have Dee Durham. Dee Durham is a council member for the 2nd District in Newcastle County, delaware, which represents the top third of the state, castle County, delaware, which represents the top third of the state. Unlike in other areas and you'll hear this in a show in Delaware, when it comes to affecting policy, while there are some municipalities within New Castle County itself, most of it is under the guidance of New Castle County, the municipalities being exclusively under their own guidance. I came across Dee's name in a article from Delaware Live that discussed about a new ordinance that was put in place to reduce light pollution in New Castle County and I figured it would be a good time to reach out and chat and learn more. So that's what I do. Let's check it out chat and learn more. So that's what I do. Let's check it out. Hi you at home.

Bill McGeeney: 1:07

It's me, bill McGeaney, and today I'm chatting with Dee Durham, a council member from Newcastle County, delaware. This is the second time I'm doing a very special segment that I dub why it's so Bright at Night. Very much looking forward to learning a little bit from our guest today. Dee, I came across your story of this lighting ordinance Lighting Ordinance 23122 in this article written by Ken Marimella from Delaware Live last month, and I found this really interesting A light pollution ordinance in Delaware's largest county and for you at home. Delaware is split into three counties and Newcastle County takes up the upper third of the state Delaware's largest county and for you at home, delaware is split into three counties and Newcastle County takes up the upper third of the state. So, dee, why don't you introduce yourself? Why don't you tell us a little bit about you and a little bit about what Newcastle County is, because it's a pretty diverse community.

Dee Durham: 2:02

Sure.

Dee Durham: 2:03

Well, yes, I was elected to county council in 2018 and have been involved for decades now in the kind of the conservation arena, the environmental arena, land use, historic preservation, that kind of thing.

Dee Durham: 2:19

And since land use is really such a huge part of what Newcastle County does provide does provide land use regulations for the county in terms of how development occurs and whatnot, and it oversees historic resources and open space preservation, that kind of thing, it was definitely right up my alley to take the step to run for county council, to run for county council. So, after coming on county council, I've actually been kind of pleasantly surprised with the myriad of other things I can do beyond just historic preservation or trying to get more done regarding open space preservation. And this lighting ordinance is, you know, a small example of that, something, a concept that came across my desk, so to speak, that I thought would be great to move forward, and it, you know, it may not be a panacea, but I hope that it will make a difference and maybe inspire other local governments in Delaware and the other counties to, you know, follow suit as well.

Bill McGeeney: 3:21

And 23-122 was unanimously approved.

Dee Durham: 3:28

Yes, eventually we did have some concerns and we can talk about those, but it was great that it eventually was passed unanimously.

Bill McGeeney: 3:36

Yeah, that's impressive in and of itself, so congratulations on that Very, very good work. So your district itself is a. You have a lot of open space and preserved space in your district right and your district two is that right correct.

Dee Durham: 3:53

Yeah, we have the national park through beaver valley and brandywine creek state park, a bunch of other county parks throughout my district, but the brandywine Creek goes right down through the middle of it, with all the parks along the way there.

Bill McGeeney: 4:10

So I think you touch a little bit of Wilmington, but really not much.

Dee Durham: 4:15

Right and I just basically go to the city line. The city of Wilmington has its own government. So Delaware is a little different than Pennsylvania in that we do not have municipalities everywhere. So basically Newcastle County Council and the county we often call it the unincorporated county. So we have a few towns that are incorporated and of course the city of Wilmington is incorporated and they generally handle their own land use and their own security, emergency services, that sort of thing. So we don't influence land use in the city of Wilmington for the most part.

Bill McGeeney: 4:53

Okay, yeah, because I don't know how it is in too many other states, but here obviously local communities kind of rule and counties kind of, I guess, provides guidance, but the communities decide how they're going to.

Dee Durham: 5:09

Right In Pennsylvania you have the local governments, I think pretty much everywhere, right? Like so there's the county layer and the local government layer underneath that, across the whole state, whereas we don't really have that in Delaware, we have the, as I said, the unincorporated county, which is what we oversee.

Bill McGeeney: 5:26

So, in terms of, I guess, land that the county actually oversees, what percentage of that is not incorporated? Do you know offhand?

Dee Durham: 5:35

No sorry.

Bill McGeeney: 5:36

It's all good. That's a tough question, that's a hard one. We're doing this.

Dee Durham: 5:39

I'll have to look that up.

Bill McGeeney: 5:42

We're doing this at 10 in the morning on Sunday, so I understand it's been a heat wave, so I get it. I guess how did? Why did you come across this light blue? Where did this come from? Where did this idea of protecting night come from?

Dee Durham: 5:58

I think it's something that I've been aware of for a long time. You know, just looking up at the night sky, depending on where you are and how many, how many stars you can see, and when I travel to other places that have less light pollution, obviously it's just, you know, amazing how the night sky, the difference than when you're standing somewhere in Newcastle County, that's, you know, fairly well developed and you can't see very much at all. So I think it kind of had been in the back of my mind for a long time and a constituent actually brought it to my attention because of a light installation that she had seen, actually in one of our local governments, who I shall leave unnamednamed. But she was really upset about it and reached out to me. We had worked together actually when I worked up in Pennsylvania for a decade or so, so she knew me and that I'd been elected.

Dee Durham: 6:57

So anyway, we this is certainly not my area of expertise at all, but she connected me with the Pennsylvania Outdoor Lighting Council and Barry Johnson, who is one of the volunteers with that council, and it was really only through his help that we got started and we sent him our existing code and he went through it with a fine-tooth comb and helped us develop what the ordinance would look like, what changes needed to be made. I can't say that we were able to incorporate all of them, but I do think we moved the ball forward at least a little bit. It's geared mostly towards new development projects, so it grandfathers in anything that's existing and that's pretty typical for most of our ordinances. But hopefully, moving forward it will make a difference. It will also apply to new development as well as redevelopment, major redevelopment so as, say, old shopping centers become redeveloped, they will also have to comply.

Bill McGeeney: 8:04

Yeah, what I found interesting about the ordinance is that you require shielding for new development, and a shielding isn't just from fixtures, it's actually from berms or natural landscaping, which.

Dee Durham: 8:17

I'm not. That was something Barry, you know, guided us on saying. You know, because I've heard that before in Board of Adjustments meetings, like, oh, we'll just plant a bunch of trees. And you know, barry's point was you can't depend on those trees to always be there, or if they're deciduous, obviously they're not there in the wintertime and if they die there's no guarantee they're going to be replaced.

Bill McGeeney: 8:40

In this case and I love Barry's work, I know Barry, he's a great guy. I know he's complained about this one Enforcement and compliance this seems to be the Achilles heel of all these light pollution ordinances out there. What mechanisms does Newcastle County have in place to uphold its ordinance?

Dee Durham: 9:00

So I guess there's sort of two aspects to that. One is that, as I said, the ordinance will really primarily impact new proposed development projects, commercial projects or corporate projects, not residential. I had led a few years ago where it was focused just on development, housing development, streetlights were required to be dark skies compliant and switch to LEDs. So that was done a few years ago. So those were already. Those are already covered in this 23122 ordinance.

Dee Durham: 9:40

So as a new development project you know gets proposed to our land use department, they will have to go through several layers of review and the lighting review will be part of that to make sure that the proposed development complies with this new ordinance. So that's one aspect of it. The other aspect is our code officials, even today can be called. It's ironic because I would say just this year I've received more complaints about glare and light trespass from neighbors than I have in the previous five years. So more for residential but also neighborhood shops and that sort of thing. So it's just it has nothing to do with this ordinance, but the ordinance and just in general reduce the complaints about nuisance lighting.

Bill McGeeney: 11:02

Often we'll hear that code enforcement officers aren't equipped with with the proper education and technology to be able to identify these issues where someone might be in violation.

Dee Durham: 11:13

That's a good question. I don't know the details of the training regarding that as it applies here, but I do know they do have a light meter I think that they can use when they're going out to investigate complaints. So sometimes there's, you know, I guess my understanding is sometimes a person might think that a light is above the limit and it may or may not be. So they do have the light meter to be able to scientifically prove whether or not it's, you know, against regulation. But I'm not familiar with their actual training regarding this issue.

Bill McGeeney: 11:54

And you mentioned that you're getting a lot more complaints, do you wonder? Is that, do you think, because we have this LED technology that is so bright, we can get fixtures so easily that anyone can you know? Essentially, if they feel that they need lighting in an area, they just throw up a fixture, not really realizing its impact elsewhere, thinking that they have that spot covered. Or do you think it's because people are more aware of this topic of light pollution now?

Dee Durham: 12:27

Or maybe both. No, I think the LED issue is a big part of it and you know most of the well, most of the complaints that I'm receiving have to do with, you know, maybe a commercial spot that you know possibly just went to Lowe's and picked up, you know, whatever they thought was most appropriate for lighting an area and it may be way over lit but that's what they installed after market, so to speak. After, not necessarily with any planning involved from professionals, and I have had one instance of you know some like a neighbor using lighting sort of as a way to annoy the neighbor.

Bill McGeeney: 13:14

So that's frustrating. It's like a weaponization.

Dee Durham: 13:16

A weaponization of lighting, but hopefully that's not too common. I just know of one instance on on that. But yeah, I think that just the led technology is is something that people probably aren't really aware of and it's maybe I'm sure you know more about it than I do, but it's still evolving in terms of what's available out there on the market. And I just think you know you go to lowes, you pick up a light you don't really think about. You know you go to Lowe's, you pick up a light you don't really think about. You know the other impacts that it might have or if it might be too bright.

Bill McGeeney: 13:51

Yeah, that's a great point, because I know you can go to Lowe's and you can probably find maybe one fixture in the whole array of fixture types you're looking for. That says dark sky compliant, although I don't think the average person understands what dark sky compliant is and I've always thought, man, wouldn't it be great if, instead of using dark sky compliant, you have something like neighbor friendly lighting, which?

Bill McGeeney: 14:15

would translate a lot better to consumers. But a lot of fixtures out there you know they're they drive lowes is selling what the consumer wants and you know that. I think there's an education gap there. But it's also a realization that they might not know what they want. Lowe's can just say, hey, well, here's the cheapest ones for us to stock. We have the most profit on these guys here. Feel free, you know, take them. So yeah, I think it'll be really interesting if we had some unique brand out there.

Dee Durham: 14:48

I love that idea. Maybe that's something that the Audubon Society or the Ornithological Societies could create a program for neighbor-friendly lighting and start branding that Like a certification that the lighting companies could use to market their products I.

Bill McGeeney: 15:10

I think that would be a big seller I think that's right there. It draws the eye. That's what people want. Who knows, maybe maybe someone listening? If you're listening at home, there you go. If you have access to a guide to lighting industry I saw in your ordinance there was a good number of details from the Illuminating Engineering Society and did you have any direct communication with IES? Any IES Delaware? Princess Pants in this.

Dee Durham: 15:37

No, no, just mostly through Barry's guidance. Okay, that language.

Bill McGeeney: 15:43

Okay, gotcha, and then he pulled it from their guidance. That's what I see in there, okay, so now I guess on to your constituents. And the thing about lighting at night is that you have to be kind of nuanced in how you convey the terminology, because the terminology can quickly look like it's threatening the people, right? So I want to just kind of throw these terms out to you to see if you think your constituents would know or have a definition for them. So, light pollution what would your constituents think that is? Or what might they think that is?

Dee Durham: 16:33

I think. Well, I guess I just answer what you know. It's sort of a guess, or what might they think that is? And you know, living in a metropolitan area I'm sure everybody has seen satellite pictures of you know the difference between the Mid-Atlantic region and the Midwest or Western the Rockies and how. You know how it compares. So hopefully everyone would understand a term like that.

Bill McGeeney: 17:01

Light trespass, what would they think? Light trespass is Light trespass, what would they?

Dee Durham: 17:05

think light trespass is. So I'm guessing again, but just hopefully understanding the word. Trespass is from neighbor to neighbor, neighboring property. You know, if I have a light on my back porch, is it impacting? Is it trespassing on the neighboring property?

Bill McGeeney: 17:23

Nighttime security nighttime security.

Dee Durham: 17:25

So I was just actually reading on this the difference between nighttime security and safety and the difference between the perception of of safety versus actual whether or not lighting actually gives you kind of a false sense of security or or safety. So we can talk about that a little bit further, I think okay, do you want to do that now?

Dee Durham: 17:50

sure I just that was one of the issues that definitely came up in our discussion at county council is, you know, some of my colleagues were concerned that we were trying to that by passing this ordinance we would somehow make communities less safe, and so I actually did talk to our chief of police and get his input and he agreed.

Dee Durham: 18:14

And you know, you can Google this as well there's lots of articles out there that say lighting prevents crime. But there's also, I think, an increasing number of articles out there on Google that will tell you that it's sort, I think, an increasing number of articles out there on Google that will tell you that it's sort of a myth, right? And the main thing I tried to emphasize when discussing the ordinance at county council was we aren't it's not geared, it was not geared toward reducing the light at all. You know, down where it's usable, you're just trying to reduce the light that goes up into the sky, where it's not serving any purpose at all. So in theory, even if you're concerned, even if you deeply believe that lighting, you know, does enhance safety and reduce crime, there should be no impact with this ordinance because you're still keeping the light on pathways or, you know, in a, in a say, on a park or whatever. It's just not going up being directed up into the air, up into the sky.

Bill McGeeney: 19:16

Yeah, the safety thing is really interesting, right, because I I think there's merit in people having to need light for comfort when they're walking. I definitely see that. We had Jennifer Hugen on earlier and she said she just felt very comfortable just having a light at night even though she had a bike light just having a light around her so she could see her surroundings when she's biking at night. And that's fine at night, and that's that's fine. But I also think that there's a piece of us right which wants it to be daylight all the time, and we kind of lean into that a little bit, that the there may be some type of fear that pushes us to believe that lighting is always safe. And you know, living here in a major city, I see I see crimes happen all the time. It doesn't really depend on light. You know, you, I bike downtown and I see windows broken in cars. You know, nine in the morning, 12 noon yeah, it could be anytime, stuff like that, you know.

Bill McGeeney: 20:20

So it's, it's interesting and I, I see your point. You're, you're not changing the light, you're just changing where the direction of the light is hitting and with that I think that's an excellent. You know, that's an excellent. It's an excellent. Something excellent to strive for is to just like hey, we want to. We want to target the light and where it should be going, versus having to go all out in different directions. We're not getting rid of it, we're just making sure it goes to this one spot. So with that and I know kind of jumping down a little bit, we'll get back to some of these definitions in a second. Are you able to translate that? Have any opponents been able to like? You mentioned that you were able to get unanimous vote.

Dee Durham: 21:03

You mentioned you were able to get individuals on board but did you have to do kind of some hand-holding to convey that idea? I think you know it definitely was an emphasis for me that you know we aren't it's not like I'm trying to ban lighting and there's some other issues came up that that we had to deal with. I think we we wrestled a little bit with the flagpole issue for lighting on flagpoles, and I think we ultimately just took that out of the ordinance. Just to you know, we try to deal with that later. Maybe it just we didn't quite get the language right on how best to deal with that. But that was a question that came up. I don't think it's by not having it in there, you know, I don't. I don't think it's a major issue across the County. It's not like every new corporate project has a lit flagpole. So hopefully by not having it in there it won't be a major difference. But we can, we can revisit that in the future.

Dee Durham: 22:09

That was one issue that came up. The other, the other issue that came up in our discussions, was just there was concern about how it would impact if, if it would residential use of outdoor lighting, like people that have patio lights and you know that sort of thing. So but again, as I said earlier, it does not impact residential development at all. We already had the street light ordinance done, so those were already dark skies compliant and LED. But it doesn't impact like what lights you can have on your front porch or your back porch or illuminating your driveway. Those still would fall under the nuisance code so they could be reported if you know if someone is having light trespass to a neighbor to to a degree.

Dee Durham: 23:00

But I think you know, once we kind of work through those issues and I you, I think that's how we got to the unanimous support. Again, it's not. It's not, it's not a panacea ordinance that you know is going to shake the world. Maybe I don't know how much of a difference it will make overall, but hopefully over time, as development occurs and redevelopment occurs, hopefully it will make a difference.

Bill McGeeney: 23:30

And you mentioned a nuisance, a nuisance provision out there in one of your ordinances. Has anyone ever taken any like trespass to court over? Like use this nuisance provision?

Dee Durham: 23:45

I't know, not that I know, not that I know of I. I mean I know we have reported some constituents that have complained about some situations and the code officials have gone out and and the changes have been made. But so we have our own sort of internal. It's not really a court, but if if someone doesn't comply with, if they've been cited with a complaint, a code enforcement issue, there there is a kind of process the county goes through to to find them if they don't comply. But I don't know of any off the top of my head that I've actually gotten to that point.

Bill McGeeney: 24:33

Yeah, I meant to ask recourse, I guess, instead of court. But at the same time I I hear a lot from people when I go out to events, everyone when they see you with a light pollution table or anything on that topic, every, everyone in that room can come over and talk to you about a neighbor they hate and they want to find a way to. You know, like I have some magical cape that I can go over and fix their situation, but oftentimes they don't know or they're not aware of any recourse that they can do to facilitate reduction of of these issues they're having. They don't want to like really, you know, like suit and they don't want to bring a lot of trouble to their neighbor. So I think something like that is for individuals to know that they may have recourse options is very important for people living in those communities. You mentioned also this this isn't going to affect landscape lighting right, correct?

Dee Durham: 25:26

Well, at least not residential, Okay.

Bill McGeeney: 25:30

So if Wegmans wanted to light up every tree on their property, they would be able to or they wouldn't be able to.

Dee Durham: 25:39

I don't think they would be able to, and their parking lots would have to be definitely dark skies compliant.

Bill McGeeney: 25:46

So does that begin? And this is a tough one, Dean. If you don't want to answer it, I get it, and I'm going to go a little off script here Does that, is that a? Is that infringing on their individual right of expression?

Dee Durham: 26:02

Well, that is what. After the ordinance passed and I sent out my newsletter article about it, I did get, I'd say, one person asking me about sort of you know, are we going too far in that regard? And I don't know. I think I would have to disagree that because we regulate all kinds of things right. Disagree that because we regulate all kinds of things right. This isn't out of the norm really, of all kinds of other land use regulations we already have in place regarding planting or, you know, other lighting aspects, all kinds of things. So it's really just a very small piece of our overall code really. So I'm sure people could see it that way if they really wanted to make an issue of it. But then again, how you know, are they upset with all of the codes that we have?

Bill McGeeney: 26:59

I'm sure. I'm sure there's plenty of codes out there that they have problems with. Okay, get back to definition.

Dee Durham: 27:06

They say it's a slippery slope, but I mean, come on, yeah, exactly.

Bill McGeeney: 27:12

Definitions. Getting back to those Natural night what would your constituents say a natural night is? Would they even have a definition for that?

Dee Durham: 27:21

You know, I'm not even sure myself what the definition of that is. I assume that it would be, and just you know, if there, if there's no, if there was no human powered light sources, or you know, human created light, electric light or whatever, what, what the natural night would be in terms of just the moonlight on any given evening. I don't know, is that right?

Bill McGeeney: 27:47

I don't have a good. I'm not the arbiter of this, I'm just asking the question.

Dee Durham: 28:07

Skyglow. I'm not the arbiter of this, I'm just asking the question. The city is, you can tell where you know the major highways are and the shopping malls, because literally on you know, on the horizon or whatever, there's a huge glow coming from those areas. So you, you definitely can tell where the development is in this area.

Bill McGeeney: 28:30

I'm going to finish up with one last question. I am going to go off script here again and again. If you don't want to answer it, that's fine. Do you think people have a right to night?

Dee Durham: 28:41

I do, and perhaps that's the flip side of your earlier question. You know it's a balancing act between or it's not a balancing act, it's a kind of a push me, pull you between the right to a natural night and versus the right of a developer to put in lights that do whatever they want them to do. So who's to say who gets precedence? So perhaps this ordinance and ordinances like this are trying to balance those two things to provide. Obviously, we live in a society, we have lighting, we have development, we want safety, or the perception of safety, and perhaps you know these dark skies. If everything was dark skies compliant, it certainly wouldn't create a natural night by any means, but it would maybe balance those two factors.

Bill McGeeney: 29:42

And Dee, you mentioned in the beginning that you have seen the Milky Way and you've gone to dark sky places. Where'd you go?

Dee Durham: 29:49

Oh well, out west in the us, the caribbean, so just places that are much less developed, obviously our national parks you can and you can get that here and in our state parks, sometimes maybe not to this same degree, but yeah, do you guys have a good uh firefly show this year out there, because I know you got a lot of that natural land it seems like there were more this year.

Dee Durham: 30:16

I don't know if you agree or not, but I I hope that's maybe due to the increase in folks planning, you know, native plants and that sort of thing yeah, we did our part. We have a pollinator garden, so we're uh, we're trying yeah, it seems to me like maybe there were a few more this year, so hopefully that's a trend.

Bill McGeeney: 30:34

Excellent. Well, dee Durham, thank you so much for coming on and being part of this. I really value your expertise here and your experience in Delaware as a council member of the Newcastle County, delaware Council. So with that said, dee, thank you and definitely have a great rest of your day.

Dee Durham: 30:57

Thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it.

Bill McGeeney: 30:59

Thank you. Thank you for listening to why it's so Bright at Night. Dee was a fantastic guest to have. It's really really a pleasure to have Dee on, and just learning about some of the issues and the background that goes on in bringing some of these policies to fruition is pretty impressive. So wish Dee plenty of luck in this and similar policies and hopefully she is able to make a really good, positive difference in the nighttime environment in Delaware. If you're interested in learning more about why it's so bright at night, you can always go over to light pollution newscom and you can find. You can find the show notes to this show, including the original link from Delaware live. That was the impetus for this interview and the 23, one, 22 ordinance text is over there as well. There'll be a link to that over on the page. I also have Appendix A here, which is a reading of the 23-122 text, where it highlights some of the main points in the text. It's not very extensive. Like Dee said, it is a good start is a good start. It's definitely not a cure-all, but it's a way to, I think, instill confidence and familiarity with some of these practices. As always, subscribe to Light Pollution News, where we have shows coming out every other week or so. You can subscribe on any podcast player you have and you can also find us on Instagram, facebook and many other LinkedIn and many other services out there. Thank you for listening. I'm Bill McGeaney and remember to only shine the light where it's needed. Here's Appendix A for today's show the New Castle County Ordinance 23122.

Bill McGeeney: 32:54

The Newcastle County Ordinance 23122,. Important to first start out with definitions that it defines three types of lighting fixtures. First is a non-cutoff fixture, which are prohibited. And then you have a semi-cutoff fixture, which directs light to partially limit the view of the light source. And then we have the full cutoff fixture, which is a shielded light with light source view. The light source is shielded from view and prevent it from going upward. Full cutoff is a condition where light is emitted from a fixture and does not extend upward beyond its bottom. They provide a image the semicutoff, which shows 5% of the light going above 90 degrees and 20% of the light above 80 degrees. The full cutoff, which shows 2.5% of the light going above 90 degrees and 10% going above 80 degrees. And a non-cutoff, which shows an uncalculated amount just calls it considerable amount of light above 90 degrees. It should be noted that all luminaire output is to be aimed downward and shall meet Illuminating Engineering Society full cutoff, fully shielded criteria where possible and have no direct uplight. Lumineers with an aggregated rate lamp output not exceeding 500 lumens, the rate output of standard non-directional 40 watt incandescent, 10 watt LED or 10 watt compact fluorescent lamps are exempt from the requirements of this section when a non-resident use is adjacent to a residential zoning district. When a non-resident use is adjacent to a residential zoning district, the maximum illumination from the non-residential use shall not exceed one-tenth foot candle as measured at the residential property line. It is interesting to note that what was struck from the actual ordinance is a paragraph that says non-cut-off street lights should only be permitted if required by the Delaware Department of Transit. All light sources or luminaries that are installed pursuant to a plan after January 1, 2022 shall utilize LEDs or other luminaries to meet or exceed energy efficiency.

Bill McGeeney: 35:08

We get into the Unified Development Code sign lighting, spotlights and floodlights. Here's another spot. Spotlights and floodlights shall be screened by walls, berms and or cutoff shielding so the light source is not visible off-site. In most cases, a combination of cutoff shielding and landscape or other feature will be needed to provide necessary screening and there's a figure that provides a view of how that works. Below figure themselves have a light zone, say with a berm or vegetation, to absorb some of that, that light zone and protect them from light trespass off-site.

Bill McGeeney: 35:50

In the text should be noted this paragraph spotlights and floodlights are to be installed and aimed so that they do not project their output onto neighboring residential properties past the object being illuminated, skyward or onto a public roadway. Spotlights and floodlights installed above grade shall not be aimed outward more than 45% from straight down. When a spotlight or floodlight creates glare as viewed from a neighboring residential property, it shall be re-aimed and fitted with a shielding device, if not already in place, to block direct view into neighboring residences. Vegetation screens must not be the primary means of shielding. Rather, glare control shall be achieved primarily through the use of fully cut-off, fully shielded luminaires, shields and baffles and appropriate application of luminaire mounting height, wattage and aiming angle and luminaire placement. Spotlights and floodlights with an aggregate rated lamp output shall not exceed 500 lumens. The rate output of a standard non-directional 40-watt incandescent, 6-watt LED or 10-watt compact fluorescent lamp are exempt from this requirement of this section In section 40.22.750, lighting generally 40.22.750.

Bill McGeeney: 37:12

Lighting generally. I want to start with the current A paragraph that we see here, as the paragraphs were shifted around and one was deleted. Exterior lights shall be shaded or directed as best as reasonably possible so that light intensity and glare shall not adversely affect neighboring property owners, pedestrians or passing motorists, consistent with Section 40.22.720, and emit no upward light. Such lighting shall be considered to adversely affect someone when the lighting would disturb a person of normal sensibilities. All exterior lighting depicted in lighting plans shall utilize LED or light emitting technologies that are at least as energy efficient as LEDs, having a light source efficacy of no less than 90 lumens per watt, and utilize warm white or filtered LED color correlated temperatures of less than or equal to 3000 Kelvin. And that concludes the highlights of the Newcastle County Ordinance number 23122. No-transcript.