Presenter: draft lighting rules would lock in Rangeley dark‑sky standards and curb blinking and lasers

A planning‑board presenter laid out proposed amendments to the town lighting rules during a joint public hearing with the select board and budget committee.

The presenter said the draft was developed to preserve Rangeley’s dark‑sky initiative and align with federal rules for flagpoles. “So this this document is fully compliant with dark skies,” the presenter said. The amendment would outlaw blinking and intermittent fixtures, prohibit upward lighting that is not shielded, and ban modern surf‑ and laser‑type lights that have generated complaints in the past. It would also set measurable luminance limits: festive lights above 50 lumens per fixture and linear densities above 25 lumens per foot would be restricted.

Board members pressed staff on enforcement and measurement. The presenter said manufacturers typically supply lumen certificates and that electronic message boards are manufactured with automatic dimming; those certificates would be used to verify compliance rather than relying solely on field meters. “The owner should have either a light source, a certificate that tells us the lumens,” the presenter said.

The draft also includes operational limits intended to reduce visual motion and distraction: electronic message boards could not change content faster than one message every five minutes, and many noncompliant fixtures would be required to be removed or brought into compliance by code enforcement. The hearing produced no immediate vote on the ordinance language; the board moved the draft to the November town meeting warrant as a separate question for voters to decide.