Politics & Government

Town Pursues Starry Skies

A committee is studying Bedford's glare from above.

Deirdre Courtney-Batson remembers as a child looking up to a vast sky filled with constellations.

The skies over her home, then in Flatbush, Brooklyn—just across the river from well-lit New York City—afforded her a starrier view than the one over her current Katonah home, she says.

"Now I can barely find the Big and Little Dipper," she said.

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The pursuit of darker skies is an international movement, and one that is catching on here in Bedford.

According to the International Dark Sky Association, light pollution mars our view of the stars and threatens astronomy, disrupts ecosystems and wastes energy to the tune of $2.2 billion per year in the U.S. alone.

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The catalyst for local action was actually a gradual growth of cases where the planning board noticed that certain projects created excessive light, beyond what they were comfortable with.

"We noticed that over time, we needed to have more formal control over light sources," said Donald Coe, chairman of the planning board. Coe said that a recent trip to Sedona, AZ, where the night sky was "startlingly clear" convinced him of the need to look at the issue.

Coe, along with fellow planning board member Courtney-Batson, approached the town board about forming a working group. Town board member Christopher Burdick agreed, and was joined by conservation board chair Simon Skolnik, and conservation board member Liz Bailey. Jeffrey Osterman, the town's Director of Planning, also serves on the committee.

In search of more than a pretty sky, committee members say research points to such facts as excessive glare causing unsafe driving conditions, energy waste and interrupted sleep.

They took to the skies for observation. Courtney-Batson's husband has a private pilot's licence, and they've already taken one flight to make notes of bright spots, with plans for another coming up.

"What we're not trying to do is spy from the sky," she said. "We're trying to assess the impact of residential and commercial lighting."

So where were the worst offenders? Surprisingly, she said, I-684 isn't as bright as you'd think. The schools were bright, as was Route 117 in Bedford Hills, and the occasional glaring residence.

"We're not trying to make people buy new lights, we're trying to fix the gaps in the light ordinance," said Burdick. "We want to gather practical examples, and adopt a reasonable plan—education may be more effective than changing the ordinance," he said.

Lighting is mentioned in at least three, if not more, ordinances. Coe said the language is "scattered" throughout the town code.

Current language specifies that glare should not go "beyond the boundaries of the property on which it is located in excess of 0.5 footcandle;" also, "intrinsically bright sources of illumination shall be prohibited." Here, definitions of light sources and bulb intensities are spelled out. In addition, separate code regulates the illumination of signs to be from indirect or internal sources, only until 10 p.m.

Courtney-Batson said that based on the first flight up, she feels they might do a better job enforcing the the code they already have.

The committee has another flight planned for this week, and a committee meeting to review the findings thereafter.

No changes to the town code would take place without a public hearing and town board vote. 


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