Relates to outdoor lighting installed by state agencies and public corporations

Summary of provisions

Section 1 adds a new Article 4-D to the public buildings law, requiring state agencies and state authorities to utilize fully shielded outdoor lighting when feasible. The bill requires the Secretary of State to develop a pamphlet containing information on the provisions of this bill, together with information regarding the adverse effects of light pollution and methods of controlling it.

Justification

This bill is intended to limit misdirected and excessive outdoor illumination. Such illumination wastes energy, intrudes on the privacy of others, creates glare which reduces the effect of lighting, deteriorates the natural nighttime environment, and reduces the ability for astronomical observation.

Outdoor lighting is used to illuminate roadways, parking lots, yards, sidewalks, public meeting areas, signs, work sites and buildings. When well designed, it improves visibility, adds an element of safety and creates a sense of security, while at the same time minimizing energy use and operating costs. However, if it is not well designed it can be costly, inefficient, counterproductive, and harmful to the nighttime environment, interfering with normal patterns of activity, behavior and physiology of flora and fauna. Recent research has indicated that exposure to light at night can upset normal human circadian rhythms, thereby disrupting hormone secretions and weakening the body's immune system.

Much of the outdoor lighting in use today wastes energy because it is poorly designed. This waste results in both higher costs for providing such lighting and increased pollution from the power plants that produce the wasted electricity. It is conservatively estimated that S3 to S4.5 billion a year is wasted in the United States in the unintended lighting of the sky rather than the streets, walkways, and outdoor public spaces which the light was intended to illuminate.

In addition to wasting energy, poorly designed lighting often causes blinding glare. Glare occurs when you see light directly from a fixture or bulb. The glare from poorly designed or positioned lighting hampers the vision of drivers and pedestrians, reducing its effectiveness and creating a hazard rather than increasing safety. It shines onto neighboring properties and into nearby residences, reducing privacy, hindering sleep, and diminishing the beauty of the natural surroundings in areas far removed from the source of such

lighting. A large portion of such lighting shines directly upward, creating the sky glow above population centers, adversely affecting the view of the night sky.

In addition to lowering the cost of outdoor lighting, limiting sky glow will allow future generations to enjoy the beauty of the stars, and to study and learn from or simply marvel at the wonders of the night sky.

This legislation addresses these problems in the following ways:

*It restricts the installation of new lighting by state agencies or state public corporations to fully-shielded luminaires. A frilly shielded luminaire is constructed and installed in such a mariner that all light emitted by it is projected below a horizontal plane through the lowest light emitting part of a light fixture.

*It exempts replacement of luminaires that are part of a Continuous roadway lighting design from the requirement that only fully shielded luminaires would be installed by state agencies and state public corporations.

*It allows the chief executive officer of any state agency or state public corporation to exempt the state agency or state public corporation from the requirement that it install only fully shielded luminaires, based upon a written determination by the chief executive officer that a compelling safety interest requires that other types of lighting be installed.

*It exempts tunnel, airport, underbridge, traffic control, navigational and natural and cultural monument lighting from the requirement to install fully shielded luminaires.

*It exempts historic-style decorative lighting if the installation of fully shielded luminaires would detract from the aesthetic character of the existing lighting.

*It allows historic-style decorative lighting to emit up to two percent of its lumens above the horizontal plane.

*It requires the Commissioner of the Office of General Services, in consultation with NYSERDA, to develop luminaire efficiency and lamp luminous efficacy standards by the effective date of the legislation and requires that these standards take effect 180 days after the effective date of this legislation.

* It requires that the Office of General Services in consultation with NYSERDA report to the legislature on technological advances that affect the provisions of this article and permits them to recommend amendments to this article that would increase its effectiveness in achieving the bill's stated purposes.

Legislative history

7902-A of 2012

Fiscal implications

Undetermined.

Effective date

This act shall take effect one year after it shall have become law, and shall not apply to installation and replacement projects that have already received final design approval prior to the effective date.