Nantucket commission weighs dark‑sky streetlight pilots, compliance deadline for town fixtures

Gail Walker, president of Nantucket Lights, told the Nantucket Historical Commission on April 18 that the town’s new outdoor‑lighting bylaw (Chapter 102) — adopted after a 2023 citizen warrant article — requires decorative street lights to meet stricter controls, and that all town‑owned decorative fixtures must be brought into compliance by Jan. 1, 2029.

Walker said the bylaw requires fixtures with more than 600 lumens to be fully shielded, limits color temperature to 2,700 Kelvin or less, caps lumen output, and restricts when lights must be turned off. She emphasized the bylaw’s “bug” rating standard for decorative fixtures (the bylaw caps uplighting at U=0 for these fixtures) and urged the commission to consider dark‑sky globeless options that eliminate uplighting.

The commission viewed a piloted globeless Victorian‑style fixture that was installed on Main Street as a loaned demonstration model and discussed…