Just a week after Portsmouth City Council tabled an ordinance to transfer Spartan Stadium, Branch Rickey Park, and other property to Shawnee Statue University, the plan is back on the City Council’s Agenda for a first reading.
While council members were all in favor of the idea because they say Portsmouth doesn’t have the money to restore or maintain the property, they did express concerns about some of the wording in the ordinance and said more time was needed. Some members also said they wanted to hear from SSU’s president. We don’t know if they got answers to their burning questions, but that will likely be addressed at Monday’s meeting. An ordinance gets three readings before members vote for or against it.
Also on the agenda is a third reading is a landscape lighting ban. The city says it’s getting complaints from neighbors who feel that other people’s lighting is trespassing onto their property and preventing them from enjoying their homes. The measure would ban lighting that “trespasses” onto neighbor’s properties or that generates glare affecting drivers or pedestrians.
Current city lighting standards forbid lights over 3000 Kelvin between 10 pm and 6 am and require fixtures to have a shield to them to reflect down. However, landscape uplighting to highlight features of a building is allowed.
Interestingly enough, the city is exempt from the outdoor lighting standards. The new legislation would put limits on uplighting.
Many are scratching their heads about Kelvin ratings. Here is a chart to show the differences in the light emitted based on the Kelvin numbers.
Here is a very easy to understand video on Kelvin, Lumens, and Watts.
