6.a Council Memo Lighting Ordinance 8.15.17Memorandum
To: Scandia City Council Reference: Lighting Ordinance Amendment
Copies To: Neil Soltis, City
Administrator
Brenda Eklund. Citv Clerk
From: Sherri Buss, RLA AICP,
Planner
Date: Auaust 3. 2017
Background
Project No.: 16323.000
Routing:
The Council will hold a public hearing on a proposed ordinance amendment to the Lighting
section of the Development Code at its meeting on August 15. The City Council requested that
the Planning Commission review the Lighting section of the Code, and provide
recommendations to the Council regarding the Lighting standards. The Planning Commission
discussed the section at its meeting on August 1, and recommended the attached ordinance
amendment to the Council for its approval.
The City's recent consideration of a Site Plan for the expansion of Scandia Elementary School
and site improvements identified the need for the ordinance amendment. The Lighting Plan for
the project proposed additional lighting and replacement lighting using LED luminaires.
The City's Development Code currently prohibits the use of LED luminaires in all zoning
districts. This section of the ordinance is older, and staff are not sure why the prohibition was
included. It may have been that when the section of the Code was adopted, LED lighting was
not designed to be shielded or downcast, and there was a concern that the light from LED's
would be too bright to meet the City's standards. The Scandia Architectural Design Guidelines
were approved more recently, and permit the use of LED lights.
LED luminaire have become the standard for most outdoor lighting because of their efficiency
and low maintenance in comparison to other types of lighting. The Scandia Elementary School
lighting plan demonstrated that LED luminaires are available that can meet the City's
performance standards for outdoor lighting.
Proposed Ordinance Amendment
The proposed ordinance amendment includes removing the prohibition of LED lighting used in
outdoor fixtures (Item 6, Prohibitions, item (D) deleted).
The City Administrator suggested some additional changes to the ordinance as follows:
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Memorandum
To: Scandia City Council Reference: Lighting Ordinance Amendment
Copies To: Neil Soltis, City
Administrator
Brenda Eklund. Citv Clerk
From: Sherri Buss, RLA AICP,
Planner
Date: Auaust 3. 2017
Background
Project No.: 16323.000
Routing:
The Council will hold a public hearing on a proposed ordinance amendment to the Lighting
section of the Development Code at its meeting on August 15. The City Council requested that
the Planning Commission review the Lighting section of the Code, and provide
recommendations to the Council regarding the Lighting standards. The Planning Commission
discussed the section at its meeting on August 1, and recommended the attached ordinance
amendment to the Council for its approval.
The City's recent consideration of a Site Plan for the expansion of Scandia Elementary School
and site improvements identified the need for the ordinance amendment. The Lighting Plan for
the project proposed additional lighting and replacement lighting using LED luminaires.
The City's Development Code currently prohibits the use of LED luminaires in all zoning
districts. This section of the ordinance is older, and staff are not sure why the prohibition was
included. It may have been that when the section of the Code was adopted, LED lighting was
not designed to be shielded or downcast, and there was a concern that the light from LED's
would be too bright to meet the City's standards. The Scandia Architectural Design Guidelines
were approved more recently, and permit the use of LED lights.
LED luminaire have become the standard for most outdoor lighting because of their efficiency
and low maintenance in comparison to other types of lighting. The Scandia Elementary School
lighting plan demonstrated that LED luminaires are available that can meet the City's
performance standards for outdoor lighting.
Proposed Ordinance Amendment
The proposed ordinance amendment includes removing the prohibition of LED lighting used in
outdoor fixtures (Item 6, Prohibitions, item (D) deleted).
The City Administrator suggested some additional changes to the ordinance as follows:
An employee owned company promoting affirmative action and equal opportunity
Code Amendment - Lighting Page 2
Scandia City Councl
August 15, 2017
• Clarification that the standards apply to outdoor lighting
• Clarify that the standards do not apply to street lighting on City streets or State or County
highways
• Exempt traditional holiday lighting
• Remove individually -lit letters from the list of prohibited lighting because requirements for
Sign lighting are included in the Sign section of the Development Code
• Remove a redundant standard—item 5 (C)6.
• Remove the item requiring lighting setbacks from the right-of-way because many
storefronts in the Village located at are the right-of-way line and could not meet the
intensity standard.
• Update the cross references in the section
The Planning Commission agreed with the Administrator's recommendations, and discussed
two additional issues related to outdoor lighting:
• Commissioner Hogle stated that she and other residents use flashing anti -predator lights
on their properties, and that this may conflict with the prohibition against flashing lights in
Section 6. Commissioners discussed this issue and options to permit this specific type
of flashing lights, but the Commission decided not to add language related to this type of
lighting in the ordinance.
• Commissioner Anderson stated that the bright lights at the City's recreational fields can
be blinding to drivers, and he questioned whether the City's standards for the intensity
and shielding of these lights should be applied to outdoor recreation lighting. The
Commission requested that staff look at regulations in other communities, and identify
whether other approaches are used to regulate recreational lighting.
Staff findings. The Planner reviewed the zoning ordinances of other communities in
Washington County, and found that the standards of these communities are the same or
very similar to Scandia's standards.
The Planner attached a section from the Outdoor Lighting Code Handbook developed by
the International Dark Sky Association which was one of the few resources with
recommendations for sports field lighting. The conclusions of the article are that newer
light fixtures and lighting designs have better shielding and can reduce the glare and
spill-over of sports field lighting. The City could consider lighting designed with better
shielding and less spill-over when it considers replacing the lighting for its recreational
fields in the future.
Planning Commission Recommendation
The Planning Commission unanimously recommended that the City Council approve the
proposed ordinance amendment for Lighting.
i
support or pole where it is really needed, instead mounting the light on a building,
pole or other structure located too far away from the area needing lighting to
provide effective lighting.
To avoid this bad lighting practice and difficult enforcement problem, it can be
feasible to simply prohibit the use of such swivel -mounted luminaires. This
approach is not suggested here in the USA Pattern Lighting Code since it is then
difficult to allow possible legitimate and correct uses of such luminaires, though
these are rarely seen. Even prohibiting luminaires with obvious swivel mounts
may not completely address the problem of poorly adjusted or mounted
hardware, as many luminaires have adjustment capabilities that are not obvious
in catalog photographs but could still lead to compromised shielding.
5.02 Sports Lighting
Lighting
levels used for night sports are the highest commonly encountered in the
ittime environment.
ommended levels for social or
eational sports, including most
ricipal sports activities, range from
to 500 lux (20 to 50 footcandles);
!Is for professional play with large
ctator attendance and television
arage can reach 3000 lux (300
candles). Controlling trespass and
e with such lighting levels is an
eme technical challenge, requiring
utmost in quality luminaires and
.her, the lighting fixtures commonly
d for sportsLighting can be huge
rces of direct glare, not only to
is nearby and at considerable
ances from the sports fields, but
to spectators and players actually
g the fields. The brightest single
rces of light visible in city nighttime
landscape views are often these facilities. It is no surprise that such lighting is
usually the single greatest source of complaint and neighborhood tension about
lighting issues.
In the past, available fixtures, lighting designs, and the general level of the sports
lighting art often left little choice for communities and designers seeking to
minimize spill and glare in sports lighting. Even today, some manufacturers and
designers will claim that spill and uplight cannot be reduced much below those
Unshielded Sports
Li htin
FuUy Shielded Sports Lighting
(courtesy of Soft® Li htin
In the past, available fixtures, lighting designs, and the general level of the sports
lighting art often left little choice for communities and designers seeking to
minimize spill and glare in sports lighting. Even today, some manufacturers and
designers will claim that spill and uplight cannot be reduced much below those
obtained with these older designs and fixtures. Fortunately, several
manufacturers have begun producing well shielded, even fully shielded
luminaires suitable for sports lighting, particularly for the most commonly
encountered levels of lighting. These designs provide major reductions in off -field
spill, and can entirely eliminate direct uplight in all but the brightest lighting levels
required for professional level sports. Further, many feel that these designs
deliver substantially improved lighting quality on the field for the players.
Unfortunately, many facilities, particularly older ones, will continue to produce
enormous amounts of light spill into adjacent areas, and both direct and reflected
light into the sky. With quality designs using modern fixtures, these obtrusive
effects can be considerably reduced, but the huge amounts of lighting required in
some situations will always lead to some obtrusive impacts, even with the best
design. Communities should be aware of the potential impacts. The location and
alignment of new fields should be carefully considered. Technical specifications
for sports lighting can be included in a lighting code that require fully shielded
lighting where at all possible, and professional design and post -installation
certification to assure that the standards are followed.
5.03 Wallpacks
A common problem source is wallpacks, wall -mounted luminaires with optical
elements (reflectors and/or refractors) that usually direct a large portion of their
light at angles near the horizontal. They are unfortunately commonly used in
inappropriate ways, often in attempts to minimize hardware expenses as
described above under swiveled luminaires, giving rise to much glare and poor
lighting. The typical plain unshielded wallpack is easily recognizable and, if its
output is above the threshold for full shielding requirements, can be denied
approval. Trouble may however arise if a user offers to install an "add-on" shield
which many manufacturers offer for their products
These add-on shields may be claimed to provide "shielding" or "cutoff," but rarely
if ever provide true full shielding according to the definition of no uplight used in
the Pattern Lighting Code (this is an example of the confusion regarding these
terms: see Note 9.16: Shielding and cutoff terminology). The planning officials
must be aware that such luminaires are almost never fully shielded, even after
adding shields, and either deny approval or require complete photometric
information to verify the complete elimination of uplight. Since for such low-cost
fixtures adequate photometric information is often not available, or if available is
Unsh elded Wallpack
Wallpack with Internal Shield
(but still not fiffly shielded).
These add-on shields may be claimed to provide "shielding" or "cutoff," but rarely
if ever provide true full shielding according to the definition of no uplight used in
the Pattern Lighting Code (this is an example of the confusion regarding these
terms: see Note 9.16: Shielding and cutoff terminology). The planning officials
must be aware that such luminaires are almost never fully shielded, even after
adding shields, and either deny approval or require complete photometric
information to verify the complete elimination of uplight. Since for such low-cost
fixtures adequate photometric information is often not available, or if available is