The Park City Planning Commission indicated a willingness to move forward with changes to the city’s land management code to better align with dark sky regulations at their meeting on Wednesday. The commission is enthusiastic about the changes.
The issue of light pollution in the Wasatch Back has become a hot topic in recent years as the region has continued to grow. Heber City is exploring new dark sky ordinances of their own and Park City Planning Director Bruce Erickson told KPCW this week Park City’s own lighting regulations are well over 30 years old and overdue for an update.
The Park City Planning Commission met this week to discuss precisely that.
Liz Jackson is a planner for Park City and said the “dark sky” movement began as a way to reduce light pollution in more urban areas and is led by the International Dark Sky Association. She said changes to the city’s lighting regulations are now a priority.
“In the past, this is something that’s kind of been on the back burner for Park City, it’s important, but now it’s definitely come to the forefront,” she said. “This is something that’s been emphasized that we’d like to do in the past and protect the night sky and it seems to go hand-in-hand with sustainable tourism as a priority of the city.”
City staff also pointed to the success of dark-sky initiatives in places like Flagstaff, Arizona. Flagstaff was the first city in the U.S. to enact a dark-sky ordinance in 1958 and was also the first city to be designated an International Dark Sky Community by the IDA in 2001. Even with a population of over 70,000, the Milky Way is still visible at night.
Proposed changes to Park City’s code to better comply with dark-sky recommendations would bring the city into alignment with current Summit County code. The changes include eliminating “foot candles” as a way of measuring the amount of illumination on a surface and establishing Lumens as the new standard.
Converting to Lumens would simplify the measurement. The more Lumens a light fixture emits, the brighter the light.
Other changes include fully shielding any outdoor lighting and requiring outdoor lights to be below 3,000 degrees Kelvin. A lower Kelvin temperature means a warmer light on the yellow spectrum as opposed to a bright white. Broad daylight is usually measured around 6,000 deg. Kelvin.
Jackson said street lights and other lights like the ones used by law enforcement or the fire department would be granted exceptions to this change in the name of public safety.
The IDA estimates nearly 35% of light is actually wasted because it is poorly aimed or insufficiently shielded and shining into the night sky. The new regulations would allow nighttime lighting of doors, walkways, and business signage, but would not allow buildings to be illuminated in order to highlight any architectural features. Some exceptions could be made for historic buildings in Park City’s Old Town.
The commission expressed strong support for modernizing the city’s lighting regulations.
Commissioner Laura Susser said recreational lighting, like the kind found on baseball fields, is currently a nuisance for some residents at night and asked how they will fit into the new regulations.
Rebecca Ward is the city’s Land Use Policy Analyst and said as the regulations go in place, recreational lighting will be addressed.
“There are some exceptions for recreational lighting,” Ward said. “There are some plans to update some of the lighting and as the technology develops under these dark-sky ordinances, there are some lights for recreation that do comply with dark sky regulations.”
City staff will now take the commissioner’s comments and concerns and return with a revised lighting proposal next month. The Park City Planning Commission will revisit these proposed changes to the city’s land management code as an action item on November 11th.
A link to the staff report with the proposed dark sky regulations can be found here.
