government

By Alice Waugh

In contrast to the mood at Town Meeting discussion last spring, residents at the State of the Town meeting were mostly supportive of a proposal to have new residential outdoor lighting meet certain “dark skies” requirements, with a few tweaks.

Voters rejected proposed zoning amendments in March that would have required permanent outdoor lighting fixtures to be shielded so as not to direct light above the horizontal, and imposed limits on their brightness and color temperature. At Saturday’s State of the Town meeting, Planning Board member Margaret Olson explained the reasoning behind those proposed rules and why they should not be difficult to follow.

When used at night, lights that are on the bluer end of the color spectrum (including computer screens) can disrupt the circadian rhythms of mammals because they are too much like sunlight, Olson said. Excessively bright lights are bad because “as you move from a well-lit to a dark space, the greater the contrast and the harder it is to adjust, and it gets worse as you get older,” she said. The solution is to have a larger number of less powerful lights in a warmer color spectrum, so the Planning Board is seeking limits of 3,000 degrees K. for color temperature and 900 lumens for brightness.

Another advantage of changing the zoning regulations is that it would make the site plan review process simpler and fairer, because the Planning Board would no longer have to examine and debate the lighting in each individual applicant’s plan, Olson said.

If approved, the new rules would apply only to new permanent outdoor lighting fixtures; existing light fixtures would be grandfathered, she emphasized. However, when replacing light bulbs, she encouraged homeowners to voluntarily buy bulbs with a color temperature that meets the new guidelines.

The board’s goals with the proposed rules, which will come before voters at Town Meeting again (though perhaps not in this exact form) in March, are fourfold:

• to protect the night sky by shining light only downward where it is needed, rather than skyward
• to protect wildlife by phasing out lights that mimic daylight
• having rules that are simple and easy for homeowners to understand
• being practical by encouraging residents to use lighting fixtures that are readily available and affordable while also being in compliance

Some residents, while generally supportive of the the proposed lighting restrictions, noted that the new rules would mean homeowners would need to install a large number of fixtures to compensate for the diminished brightness of each, compared to lights commonly in use now.

“A 60-watt bulb [the equivalent of 900 lumens] is not a lot. Driveway lights are about 250 watts, so you would need 10 to 20 fixtures,” said Steven Kanner, a member of the Board of Health. He suggested that the Planning Board create a mockup to give homeowners an idea of how an outdoor lighting plan should be designed to offer enough light while also complying with the rules.

Kanner also suggested changing the color temperature limit to 3,300 degrees K. and Olson was receptive, acknowledging that the 3,000 degree figure was arbitrary and that “perhaps that level of simplicity is unnecessary.”

Buzz Constable asked that the amended zoning regulations should allow the Zoning Board of Appeals to grant exceptions, which would allow some flexibility to accommodate new lighting technology and research in the future. “We don’t want to come back and argue about color every three years,” he said.

“I can assure you that the lighting being proposed is fully adequate,” said resident Frank Clark, an astrophysicist. “We’ve become accustomed to bright lights, most of which are going up into the sky and doing nothing.”

Olson urged residents to attend Planning Board hearings this winter to learn more about these and other proposed zoning amendments and offer their input before Town Meeting.

By Alice Waugh

They say you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but you might be able to make cheap electricity from garbage—or at least from land on top of garbage.

One of the discussion topics at Saturday’s State of the Town meeting is the idea of putting solar panels on the closed landfill next to the transfer station. If a proposal from Boston-based BlueWave Capital comes to fruition, a solar installation on the site could produce more than 50 percent of Lincoln’s municipal electricity use, according to members of Lincoln’s Green Energy Technology Committee (GETC), which has been studying the idea.

BlueWave has been working with 17 area towns to identify potential sites for solar installations, and the best site they found in Lincoln is the landfill, GETC members explained at the October 19 Board of Selectmen meeting in preparation for the State of the Town. A solar array on the landfill site could generate anywhere from 650 kW to 980 kW, which today would amount to 56 percent of municipal electricity (i.e., power for public schools, town-owned buildings and streetlights).

The town would pay about 12.5 cents per kWh (kilowatt hour) for 20 years with no escalation, compared to the current price of 18-29 cents per kWh depending on the time of year.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” said GETC member Paul O’Neil.

But there are many regulatory and legal issues that would have to be resolved before any of this can happen. For example, when the landfill was closed in 1995, the state helped fund the closure in exchange for a promise by Lincoln to restrict future use of the land to open space and conservation, so the state legislature would have to approve an amendment to that restriction.

“Lincoln being who we are, we’ve tightened the screws as much as possible to make it challenging to shift anything,” said GETC member John Snell.

Other legal and policy issues include the lease agreement for the land, possible payment in lieu of taxes for use of the site, the opinions of abutters including the National Park Service, and a “complex web” of federal and state tax credits and deadlines, said Town Administrator Tim Higgins. Lincoln voters will be asked to vote on one or more warrant articles at Town Meeting in spring 2016.

Several other area towns including Acton, Concord, Maynard, Sudbury and Weston have already completed or signed contracts for solar development of town-owned land, GETC member Jennifer Morris said. Capacities range from 1.2 mW in Maynard to 2.25 mW in Weston.

By their very nature, solar arrays need sizable chunks of open space, which Lincoln has in abundance relative to its population, O’Neil noted. In Lincoln, there are about 1.6 acres of protected open space per household, compared to 0.7 acres in Weston, for example.

“That’s what makes us distinct, and we appreciate that and want to protect it,” O’Neil said.

But a solar array obviously also changes the nature of the land it sits on, potentially putting the desire for open space and the desire for renewable energy at odds with each other.

“It’s appropriate to put this in front of the town to ask, do you want renewable energy and should we use some of what we all share” to make it happen, O’Neil said.