Online tool helps municipalities address light pollution

For communities seeking to reduce light pollution through new or updated lighting policies, the nonprofit DesignLights Consortium offers an online resource to help municipal leaders navigate the complexities of lighting design and regulation.

The Medford-based nonprofit recently launched “Responsible Light at Night for Local Governments,” an online tool that includes information on outdoor lighting and the importance of protecting the night sky from overlighting, sample lighting ordinances, DLC performance criteria for dark sky-friendly lighting, and a list of products meeting those requirements, among other resources.

The DLC wants to help demystify lighting science for municipalities and emphasize the importance of keeping night skies dark, said Christina Halfpenny, the DLC’s executive director.

“I think it’s unfair to ask municipal leaders to become lighting designers,” Halfpenny said.

To the extent that municipalities have to become involved in lighting design, however, whether it be for municipal lighting or the oversight of private development, she urges them to be thoughtful about how much light they actually need, and to “light for the purpose.”

The DLC works with utilities, lighting designers, manufacturers, government entities and other stakeholders to create lighting criteria that keeps up with technological changes, and to improve energy efficiency, lighting quality, and people’s experience of lighting.

Dark-sky advocates say that light pollution leads to increased energy consumption, disturbs plant and animal behavior, and negatively affects human health by disrupting people’s sleep-wake patterns. In recent years, momentum has been building to protect the night sky from over-illumination.

In addition to the environmental and public health concerns, the DLC and others have been emphasizing the connection between lighting and social justice. Too often, they say, communities mistakenly equate aggressive lighting with safety and with crime prevention, and as a result, communities of color have faced a disproportionate burden of light pollution.

“If it’s a public housing complex, or if it’s a neighborhood that has a lot higher incidents of police action — if we just go in there unilaterally with a lot more light, brighter light — we really need to think about what it is we’re trying to do with that light,” Halfpenny said, “because there are unintended consequences of overlighting to the residents who live there.”

She said a wide range of options exists for communities looking to reduce their lighting pollution, and some solutions can be as simple as making sure lights are shielded and are pointed down at the ground.

Halfpenny said her organization has been seeing an increase nationwide in municipalities addressing lighting issues through ordinances and code restrictions. The DLC website has a map and list of about three dozen Massachusetts communities with outdoor lighting ordinances.

The town of Hull, for example, has a zoning bylaw amendment scheduled for a Town Meeting vote on May 1. The bylaw, drafted with input from the DLC, would require developers of multifamily housing and commercial projects to submit a lighting plan, demonstrate that they’re complying with certain lighting specifications, and prevent glare and light from projecting beyond the property.

Community Development and Planning Director Chris Dilorio said Hull hasn’t had a formal process for handling lighting concerns and has been addressing issues on a project-by-project basis. He said officials have been noticing more issues with over-lighting over the past few years, particularly in the downtown area, with lighting from commercial projects spilling into neighboring properties and bringing glare onto streets.

The MMA also offers resources on lighting. In 2020, the MMA’s Policy Committee on Energy and the Environment released its own recommendation on municipal exterior lighting conversions as part of the MMA’s Best Practices Series. The recommendations involve shielding lighting fixtures, using an appropriate color temperature, and installing light-dimming features.