ORD-2003-037 - Outdoor Lighting Standards Zoning Ordinance Amendment

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DRAFT 1 2 "Duke's interest in this is to make sure that the Ordinance is simple followed which will 3 equate to compliance, which will equate to effectiveness. And to that end, and to the intent of 4 trying to limit light trespass, the remarks that we have provided are geared. Let me just say a 5 couple of things because I appreciated the preceding speakers. 6 7 "The first thing is that part of my business is to look at lights all the time whenever I'm 8 riding down the road so I know how everybody feels when you start thinking about things and 9 you start looking up. And I do see lights all the time that are creating problems. And it is relatively 10 simple to fix them. And I think that the Ordinance can address that 11 12 "The other thing that I want to mention because I found some common ground. I live in 13 rural Alamance County, not far from what is called "Three College Observatory." I've beer• up 14 there a couple of times with my children to observe the heavens, and the light pollution is a '15 problem. It is getting worse, especially on a foggy night. The moisture in the air does cause a 16 problem. And if you go out and look, you'll probably notice that some of the greatest offenders, 17 unfortunately, are governmental agencies. You look at the highway lighting down 185, you look at 18 the lighting over different municipalities. And it is going to be a tough issue to tackle unless 19 municipalities and governmental lighting is included. And, again, I applaud Orange County 20 because, based on my interpretation of the Ordinance, that has not been ignored. So, I think that 21 is a good step. 22 23 "1 mentioned seven things in the memo that was sent, which I will not go over again 24 because you've got them with you tonight, but I just wanted to make a couple of mentions of a 25 couple of highlights. 26 27 "One is the Section 631.5, which refers to the submittal of plans and designs for lighting 28 applications. This is of concern to Duke Power from the standpoint that, due to the volume of 29 lighting and everything, it is going to be challenging for everything to be submitted and reviewed. 30 I'm not saying it cannot be done, but the burden of the submittal and the approval process will fall 31 upon the requesting party. And it would be up to a public utility like Duke Power to, we'd have to 32 have that come in hand from the requesting party to us. That is not a service that could be 33 performed under the current rate structure. So that translates into extra cost to a requesting 34 party to have that submitted and brought to us, something that is approvable. Again, I don't think 35 - . that I know that Duke Power does not have a position on that. We are just making everybody 36 aware that that is a direct action of the Ordinance that will take place. 37 38 "A lot of lights that Duke Power puts in are situations where there is a farmer or 39 somebody that has a convenience store or just somebody's got their own home, wants a light 40 installed. Duke Power supplies lights under the North Carolina Utility Commission, which 41 approves the light selection that is installed. And, currently, the guidelines we follow to put the 42 lights up are fairly straight forward and our desire is that they remain so under the Ordinance. 43 44 "The simplest way to do that is to make the foundational Ordinance the requirement of 45 cut -off fixtures, which I think would probably address 90 percent of the fight pollution, tight 46 trespass problem that we see today. The biggest irritant is the point source of light that you see 47 when you are outside looking at the light, and that light is not directed on the surface, it's directed 48 out, and even a relatively small light from a distance will be an irritant just because of that point 49 source that you can see. A cut-off fixture would address that and it is something very simple to 50 do. 51