Lighting ordinance tabled

A proposed new lighting ordinance has suffered an abrupt power loss.

The Port Aransas City Council voted 5-1 on Thursday, May 21, to table an ordinance aimed at reducing glare from outdoor lighting in town.

Voting to table the matter were Mayor Claude Browne and council members Keith McMullin, Rick Pratt, Charles Bujan and Mike Hall. Council member Glenda Balentine voted against tabling it. “I think we need action,” she said later. “That’s why I didn’t want to table it.”

Councilman Keith Donley was absent.

The move came after Hall raised concerns that the ordinance could cost small business owners too much money. Brown also argued against the ordinance because it exempted town facilities from complying with the ordinance.

Still, the ordinance likely will come up again for third reading at the council’s June 18 meeting. Before that, city staff will develop some alternative language that the council could use as an option for including some city facilities in the ordinance, according to City Manager Michael Kovacs.

Outdoor lighting has come under scrutiny since residents in the area of The Dunes Condominium started complaining about the glare of new security lights the condo installed in its parking lot last year. The Dunes installed shields around its lights to cut the glare, but neighbors said it wasn’t enough.

A light ordinance passed in 2002 affects an area of town known to city officials as the CZ2 Overlay, which includes Alister Street, Cut-off Road, Cotter Avenue, Avenue G, Beach Street and Access Road 1A, the area known as The Flats and the harbor area, said Dave Parsons, the city’s planning and projects manager.

That part of Port Aransas includes the vast majority of the businesses in town, he said. Those businesses and government facilities already are supposed to be in compliance, but many are not, Parsons said.

As proposed, the new ordinance would apply to the rest of the city, including the area of The Dunes Condominium.

Hall said he opposed the ordinance because it could require small business owners to alter their outdoor lighting at what could be great expense. He said new lighting devices should not be a mandate on existing businesses, just as the city doesn’t require homeowners to tear down their non-compliant homes when new building codes are created.

Parsons said the city wouldn’t have required businesses to change their already-existing lighting in the areas affected by the new ordinance unless there were complaints and city officials found that the lighting did indeed produce too much glare.

Parsons said the city exempted itself because toning down lights at certain city facilities would be impossible – at least, not without great expense. Facilities include the airport, the Port Aransas Community Park ball fields and fishing piers.

Prior to the vote to table the matter, the council held a 3-3 vote for approval on a third reading of the ordinance. Mc- Mullin, Pratt and Balentine voted yes. Brown, Bujan and Hall voted no.

Even if the council votes down the proposed ordinance in June, the panel likely will end up looking at the lighting question again in coming months.

Chapter 25 of the town’s zoning code, which generally addresses how people can use their property, is being updated by city staff now, and that part of the code includes the subject of outdoor lighting, Parsons said. The updating effort has been underway for about two months, and staff could be finished in perhaps another six months, he said.

Where lighting is concerned, the zoning rewrite likely will look a lot like the ordinance that the city council turned away, because that’s the direction of the Planning and Zoning Commission, Parsons said. It will be up to the council whether to go along with that provision of the re-write, he said.