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Silverton committee directs staff to relax downtown lighting rules, scrap some lumen caps
Summary
Town staff proposed and the committee backed loosening outdoor‑lighting rules (moving away from strict Dark Sky criteria), exempting downtown mixed‑use blocks from curfews, and changing requirements from “fully shielded” to more flexible downturned/partially shielded fixtures; staff will draft an ordinance.
Lucy, a town staff member presenting remotely, told the Personnel & Ordinance Committee that the board had requested amendments to Silverton’s outdoor‑lighting code after residents said the existing Dark Sky–aligned standards were too restrictive for the downtown business environment. She said staff had circulated a tracked‑changes memo and sought direction before drafting an ordinance.
Lucy said staff’s proposals include removing language that requires lighting to be the “minimum necessary to provide safety and functionality,” exempting the downtown MU1 mixed‑use district from curfew rules that would force lights off when spaces are unoccupied, and replacing a “fully shielded” requirement (in which no part of the bulb is exposed) with more flexible “downturned” or partially shielded language. Lucy told the committee she had also included a proposed marquee exemption to preserve historic theater and hotel signage and that low‑wattage string lights in business areas would remain exempt if limited to about 3,000 Kelvin.
Committee members pressed for precise wording that would preserve safety standards while avoiding an interpretation that forbids decorative or practical downtown lighting. The group discussed keeping canopy lighting standards (gas‑station style lighting) unchanged and removing the Illuminating Engineering Society requirement for sports‑field lights while still requiring fields to be dark when not in active use. On lumen limits, the committee directed staff to remove per‑site lumen caps for the MU1 district; members debated whether residential districts should retain limits but emphasized color temperature and shielding as more useful controls than raw lumen counts.
The committee agreed an explicit written exemption for marquee‑style building and sign illumination in the downtown district was preferable to case‑by‑case variances. Lucy said she would draft ordinance language incorporating the committee’s direction — relaxing shielding requirements to "downturned/partially shielded," exempting marquee and low‑Kelvin string lights, and removing MU1 lumen caps — and return to the board with a formal ordinance.
The committee did not take a vote at the meeting; the next procedural step is for staff to prepare and circulate proposed ordinance text and for the board to consider it in a future hearing.
