Woodland Hills committee prepares council presentation on Dark Sky certification and sports-court lighting

Sherry, a committee member, told colleagues at the April 15 Parks, Trails & Recreation meeting that the group should present to the Woodland Hills City Council on pursuing International Dark-Sky Association community certification and updating the city lighting ordinance to address sports-court lighting.

The presentation will rely on material from darksky.org and involve the committee, representatives from Utah Valley University—s (UVU) dark-sky program and a Dark-Sky board representative, Sherry said. "I think basically everything that we need to make a presentation to the city is in this website," she said.

Why it matters: Committee members said certification would formalize the city—s approach to outdoor lighting, affect city-owned fixtures and give Woodland Hills a public designation used for outreach. The group flagged two practical issues for the council: whether the city must retrofit public lighting within a specified period and whether the city can require lighting plans as part of building permits under state code.

Discussion highlights

- Sherry said the existing city lighting ordinance currently specifies a 75-watt limit and does not address sports-court lighting; she told the group "there was nothing in it about lighting" when council recently approved sports courts. She added that sport-court fixtures are likely far brighter than a 75-watt bulb and recommended adding sports-court provisions to the lighting ordinance.

- Brian, identified in the meeting as a city council member, said he would work to get the entire city council to consider the committee—s presentation and, if the council directs it, to ask the city attorney for a legal opinion where there are conflicting views. "If the council as a whole decides that this is a direction that we do wanna go ... then we can use our power as the legislative body to actually move this forward," he said.

- Sherry told the committee she had spoken with a UVU contact, Daniel, and described an existing UVU program that can monitor night-sky quality and said UVU staff or students might be available to help. "In talking with Daniel, at Sunrise Jensen, UVU has a program pertaining to the night sky where they have the equipment where you can monitor light emitted and they're willing to do that for us," she said.

- The committee reviewed material on the Dark-Sky site, including the five principles of responsible outdoor lighting (targeted, useful, low level, controlled, warm-colored lighting), sample lighting management plans and a statement that certification can sometimes be completed in as little as 90 days but may take longer.

Clarifications and next steps

- Certification requirements mentioned on darksky.org include continued participation in night-sky monitoring and hosting two public sky events per year; the committee discussed using UVU for monitoring and student projects.

- The committee agreed to divide the presentation into sections and asked members to prepare to present parts of the darksky.org materials. Sherry proposed a joint presentation at a city council work session and identified May 13 as the council date to pursue.

- Committee members recommended legal review on two points: whether the state building code prevents requiring lighting plans with building permits, and whether a certification requirement would obligate retrofitting public fixtures (several speakers indicated that retrofit requirements would apply to city-owned lighting).

The committee set its plan to present darksky.org materials, to involve PTR committee members and external partners (UVU and the Dark-Sky board), and to prepare materials for the May council meeting. The group did not take a formal vote on certification at the meeting.