It Could Soon Be Lights Out in Calabasas
When the Bob Smith BMW dealership moves from Canoga Park to Calabasas next year, the brilliant sign that lights up its lot might go dim. Searchlights might no longer herald special sales. The night could belong to stargazers.
Calabasas is the latest in a growing number of cities to consider enacting a “dark sky” ordinance. The law would limit outdoor lighting to preserve views of the heavens. The City Council is expected to vote on the proposal early next year.
“Just like protecting scenic corridors or oak trees, we have to respect residents’ ability to control their night environment,” Councilman Dennis Washburn said. “Calabasas is not Van Nuys, and we can’t let our light standard be the same as Van Nuys.”
The ordinance would only allow low-energy, non-glare lights around homes and businesses.
Such restrictions are opposed by the outdoor advertising industry. An attorney representing the California Sign Assn. said the law would hurt commerce in Calabasas. In 1997, members of the association won a lawsuit that stopped Agoura Hills from removing a Denny’s sign.
“L.A. glows in the dark; there’s no way to escape it,” said Jeffrey Aran, the association’s Sacramento-based attorney. “The stargazers have to look at the business reality of an urban environment. If the city allows the business there, that business has a constitutional right to put up a sign.”
The International Dark-Sky Assn. in August released a report saying that two-thirds of Americans can no longer see the Milky Way because of “light pollution.”
“With current technology and what we know about the savings from using low-energy lighting, there’s no excuse for losing visibility of our skies,” said Liz Alvarez, the group’s executive director.
Cities such as San Diego and Tucson, Ariz., where critical observatories are located, have dark-sky laws. In Los Angeles, the Department of Public Works adopted the Dark-Sky Assn.’s guidelines in 1991. Before then, the association had labeled Los Angeles the “worst of the worst, the role model for cities with bad lighting policies,” said George Eslinger, a former city public works official, who introduced the guidelines.
“I was defensive at first, but then I saw their point was reasonable,” Eslinger said. The city has replaced thousands of street lights with ones that use glare shields and low-energy bulbs.
Los Angeles has not imposed lighting limits on homes and businesses however.
Proposed County Plan Would Limit Lighting
The county of Los Angeles has light restrictions in its proposed master plan for unincorporated land in the west San Fernando Valley and Agoura Hills area. The Agoura Hills City Council has denied a number of requests to install street lights on roads it wants to keep dark but has not adopted a citywide lighting policy.
Across the Ventura County line, Thousand Oaks restricts lighting at public buildings, “but we don’t put a gun to businesses’ head with some ordinance,” Assistant City Manager Scott Mitnick said. Thousand Oaks is home to a brightly lighted auto mall.
Mitnick said Calabasas, population 20,000, “wants to go back to a way of life that never was.”
The new BMW dealership in Calabasas would have to comply with dark sky codes if an ordinance is passed, but the law would not apply to Calabasas Motors next door because it would be “grandfathered in” to the new ordinance.
Calabasas Motors co-owner Tim Smith said he would not press the city to force his competitor to tone down its lights. “Their bright signs will probably help me out a little,” Smith said.
Calabasas Mayor Janice Lee, who has promoted the measure, said the final draft may be watered down to affect only scenic areas.
“There is literally no experience more stunning and moving than to look into a dark sky at night and see what astronomers have talked about for centuries,” Lee said. “Starlight takes millions of years to reach us, and it would be a shame for us to waste it in its last moment of existence.”
