[Vision2020] RE: lighting pollution

[Mark Solomon]

Jeff,

Excuse me, but where in my post is there ANY indication of my 
position on the lighting ordinance? I will say from my somewhat 
unique vantage point that the number of yard lights visible from the 
highest point in the county has grown dramatically over the past 20 
years. As to predators, I have never seen even so much as a track in 
the snow of anything more vicious than an ermine within 50 yards of 
our house and we have no outdoor lighting. Or a dog, for that matter. 
And yes, I have seen many instances of predator taking prey, but 
never by the house. Must be my haircut.

But what I want to focus on is my post and your response where it was 
relevant: what use of the planning and zoning laws do you support 
using for regulating land use. Your reply is for the "safety and 
health of the residents."

Does this mean you don't support the sections of the law that require 
planning to consider property rights, historical, cultural, 
transportation and environmental issues among others? Or that only 
when you consider those issues to effect the safety and health of the 
residents that they should be considered and that development can 
adversely effect anything else and it should be allowed?

Mark

    67-6508.  PLANNING DUTIES. It shall be the duty of the planning or
planning and zoning commission to conduct a comprehensive planning 
process designed to prepare, implement, and review and update a 
comprehensive plan, hereafter referred to as the plan. The plan shall 
include all land within the jurisdiction of the governing board. The 
plan shall consider previous and existing conditions, trends, 
desirable goals and objectives, or desirable future situations for 
each planning component. The plan with maps, charts, and reports 
shall be based on the following components  as they may apply to land 
use regulations and actions unless the plan specifies reasons why a 
particular component is unneeded.
     (a)  Property Rights -- An analysis of provisions which may be necessary
to insure that land use policies, restrictions, conditions and fees do not
violate private property rights, adversely impact property values or create
unnecessary technical limitations on the use of property and analysis as
prescribed under the declarations of purpose in chapter 80, title 67, Idaho
Code.
     (b)  Population -- A population analysis of past, present, and future
trends in population including such characteristics as total population, age,
sex, and income.
     (c)  School Facilities and Transportation -- An analysis of public school
capacity and transportation considerations associated with future development.
     (d)  Economic Development -- An analysis of the economic base of the area
including employment, industries, economies, jobs, and income levels.
     (e)  Land Use -- An analysis of natural land types, existing land covers
and uses, and the intrinsic suitability of lands for uses such as agriculture,
forestry, mineral exploration and extraction, preservation, recreation,
housing, commerce, industry, and public facilities. A map shall be prepared
indicating suitable projected land uses for the jurisdiction.
     (f)  Natural Resource -- An analysis of the uses of rivers and other
waters, forests, range, soils, harbors, fisheries, wildlife, minerals, thermal
waters, beaches, watersheds, and shorelines.
     (g)  Hazardous Areas -- An analysis of known hazards as may result from
susceptibility to surface ruptures from faulting, ground shaking, ground
failure, landslides or mudslides; avalanche hazards resulting from development
in the known or probable path of snowslides and avalanches, and floodplain
hazards.
     (h)  Public Services, Facilities, and Utilities -- An analysis showing
general plans for sewage, drainage, power plant sites, utility transmission
corridors, water supply, fire stations and fire fighting equipment, health and
welfare facilities, libraries, solid waste disposal sites, schools, public
safety facilities and related services. The plan may also show locations of
civic centers and public buildings.
     (i)  Transportation -- An analysis, prepared in coordination with the
local jurisdiction(s) having authority over the public highways and streets,
showing the general locations and widths of a system of major traffic
thoroughfares and other traffic ways, and of streets and the recommended
treatment thereof. This component may also make recommendations on building
line setbacks, control of access, street naming and numbering, and a proposed
system of public or other transit lines and related facilities including
rights-of-way, terminals, future corridors, viaducts and grade separations.
The component may also include port, harbor, aviation, and other related
transportation facilities.
     (j)  Recreation -- An analysis showing a system of recreation areas,
including parks, parkways, trailways, river bank greenbelts, beaches,
playgrounds, and other recreation areas and programs.
     (k)  Special Areas or Sites -- An analysis of areas, sites, or structures
of historical, archeological, architectural, ecological, wildlife, or scenic
significance.
     (l)  Housing -- An analysis of housing conditions and needs; plans for
improvement of housing standards; and plans for the provision of safe,
sanitary, and adequate housing, including the provision for low-cost
conventional housing, the siting of manufactured housing and mobile homes in
subdivisions and parks and on individual lots which are sufficient to maintain
a competitive market for each of those housing types and to address the needs
of the community.
     (m)  Community Design -- An analysis of needs for governing landscaping,
building design, tree planting, signs, and suggested patterns and standards
for community design, development, and beautification.
     (n)  Implementation -- An analysis to determine actions, programs,
budgets, ordinances, or other methods including scheduling of public
expenditures to provide for the timely execution of the various components of
the plan.
     Nothing herein shall preclude the consideration of additional planning
components or subject matter.

Mark,

Yes, there are numerous examples.  But the predominant case for local
land use planning is the safety and health of the residents.

I am glad that you recognize that the nuisance suits are notoriously
hard to pursue.  They should be - they are civil issues.  But that is
exactly why the process for adjudication of the civil issue is
there.  If the protagonist cannot demonstrate actual damage from the
activity then how can the adjudication be remedied?  This lighting
issue is frivolous and trivial - why?  Because it pits a "health and
safety issue" against a "desire to be able to view dark skies."  Dark
sky viewing is not a civil right; health and safety is.

In the anecdotal case that one neighbor's light is intruding on
another neighbors property is a classic civil issue.  And unless the
number of suits reaches some "high level", the government should stay
out of it.

One lighting area that may warrant some regulation is neighbor
proximity.  I would have only mild concern about an ordinance that
specified when two resident buildings are located within a certain
distance of each other, say 100 feet, that "down lighting" or "light
directing" rules might be appropriate.  The benefit, however, should
be to an ordinance that always provides for "health and safety" over
personal preferences and inconvenience.

But I know that you recognize the science of lighting just as well as
I do.  And I know that you know that light is invisible to the human
eye until it refracts or reflects off of something.  You know, just
as well as I do that the problem of "light pollution" stems from the
various particulates in the atmosphere and not the incidence of local
light.  I think you also know that down directed lighting will
reflect back up and that that is an especially difficult problem with
snow on the ground.  I am confident that you also know that the light
hitting the earth's surface directly from solar objects (stars) and
reflecting from planetary objects (planets and other orbital bodies)
are far more responsible for "light pollution" than any amount of
locally generated light sources.  The light reflected from the moon
affects us for more than three weeks out of a year.  My night sky
viewing is always planned around the quarter of the moon - isn't yours?

I think you know just as well as I do that if one wants to view an
unobscured night sky that the best opportunity on the Palouse is to
get out the night after a cleansing rain storm.  We also need to have
the storm front blow through and leave no cloud cover.  The
particulate is, for the most part, gone and the view of the night sky
is spectacular.  And the local light sources are irrelevant.  I lived
many years in Seattle.  There were many nights after rain that the
night sky from Queen Anne hill was completely visible - irrespective
of the fact that I was less than a mile from Seattle Center.  An even
more enlightening view could be had from the deck of a sailboat in
Puget Sound, with all the lights of Seattle as a backdrop - the night
sky was filled with stars.

See, what puzzles me is - I know you know these things.  What I can't
figure out is why you would support legislation that will make a
handful of folks feel good about themselves and cost hundreds of
folks a bunch of money.  And at the end of the day, the sky won't be
any more visible than it is right now.

At 12:18 PM 1/22/2006, you wrote:
>Jeff,
>
>Are there any instances in which you consider it appropriate for
>local government to use the authorities granted under the state
>Local Land Use Planning Act to regulate land use activities? Please
>tell us where the line is that you would draw.
>
>Sometimes, it seems, one person's "common sense" is another's
>"Mother, get me the rifle". Nuisance suits are notoriously hard to
>pursue unless one can prove actual monetary damages and given your
>general ideological drift, resorting to lawyers and courts would
>hardly appear to be the path you would choose.
>
>Mark Solomon
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