WESTFIELD — City councilors recently shed some light, and heat, on proposed changes to the parking lot lighting ordinance.

Now residents with opinions or questions about the law — and whether Westfield Gas & Electric will be able to comply with it as it rents lighting fixtures to landowners throughout the city — will have their own chance to do so, at public hearings scheduled for April 4 at 7 p.m. during the Planning Board meeting, and on April 6 at 7 p.m. during the City Council meeting.

The city’s lighting ordinance, adopted in October 2017, can be viewed, with the proposed amendment highlighted in red, at www.cityofwestfield.org/DocumentCenter/View/13148/lighting-exemption.

According to Ward 6 Councilor William Onyski, the ordinance was originally a response to public outcry against lights installed at the Roots Athletic Center which impacted surrounding residences.

Onyski, who made the motion to set  the public hearings for the amendment during the City Council meeting on March 16, said at the time the ordinance was created, nobody had consulted with Westfield Gas & Electric. 

Municipal street lights were exempted in the original ordinance, along with lighting lawfully installed prior to October 2017.  Not exempted were the more than 600 floodlights that WG&E currently has installed on its poles and rents out to businesses to illuminate parking areas.

The amendment, which moves the date of exemption to May 1, 2023, proposes to allow WG&E to replace existing rental lighting fixtures with energy efficient LEDs without requiring a waiver.

“Currently, if an obsolete bulb burns out, the fixture can’t be replaced with equivalent LED without a public hearing,” wrote Onyski in the petition for the zoning amendment.

“We call them safety and security lighting. If we have a pole in a parking lot or in a facility, we can attach a light to that,” said Thomas Flaherty, general manager of Westfield Gas & Electric. He said the utility company has been doing this “forever.”

Flaherty said historically, the lights were mercury vapor high-pressure sodium, which cast an orange light. He said they are looking to take all of the 400-watt high-pressure sodium lights down, and put up 129-watt LEDs, which he said put out a better quality of light, “a white light.”

“You’re taking away inefficient and low-quality to more efficient white light,” Flaherty said. He said the new fixtures also have better direction.

The sodium lights had a five-year life span, but the LED lights, though they cost twice the price, will last 30 years, he said.

The light fixtures cost WG&E $500 to $1,000, plus labor, and are rented out at a cost of $20 to $25 a month, bringing in about $15,000 monthly, according to Flaherty.  He said the 600 fixtures are rented out to about 300 business and industrial customers, with the biggest customer being the city of Westfield for its buildings and schools.

At the City Council meeting, Onyski said the goal of the ordinance amendment is to make these areas safe, so when lights do go out, they can be replaced with equivalent LED lighting.

Ward 3 Councilor Bridget Matthews-Kane opposed Onyski’s motion to go forward with public hearings on the amendment.

“This issue about our city’s light ordinance was brought to my attention in June of 2022 when a constituent complained about bright lights that a business had recently installed on Washington Street. The new lights broke all five of the standards in the lighting ordinance that the city adopted in 2017, so I was able to have these specific new lights removed,” Matthews-Kane said.

“The larger issue is that these lights were installed by Westfield Gas & Electric, our municipal utility. It turns out WG&E has installed over 600 of these noncompliant lights all over the city. These lights follow none of the five standards established in the lighting ordinance,” she said, adding that while she concedes that lights installed before the October 2017 lighting ordinance would be grandfathered in, these lights were installed after the lighting ordinance went into effect.

“G&E could find lighting that fits the ordinance, but at this point they have chosen not to. They rent out these lights to businesses, and this rental business is a consistent revenue stream for them. It would be expensive and time-consuming to fix this problem. Addressing the light pollution issues that they themselves have caused does not seem to be high on their list of priorities,” Matthews-Kane said, adding that “pretending that Westfield G&E is the only option for our neighborhood businesses’ lighting needs is misguided, as they can hire other electric companies to do this work.”

Matthews-Kane also expressed disappointment in WG&E, City Hall and the motion itself that was before the council. She said while the Building Department acknowledges that WG&E lights do not follow the ordinance, it has not yet developed a guiding policy to tackle the issue that it has known about since June.

“I know it is awkward and uncomfortable that our own municipal utility is not following the rules, but they must follow the rules like any other entity in our city,” Matthews-Kane said.

She said some of these lights in Ward 3 shine directly in people’s windows, causing light pollution linked to serious human health problems and negative environmental impacts.

“This is not a minor issue. I am approaching this as a ward councilor who cares deeply about the quality of life issues in my ward,” Matthews-Kane said, adding that the motion before the council with the 2023 date will create “a gigantic loophole,” grandfathering in all of the illegal lights.

Also opposed to the amended date was at-large councilor Kristen Mello.

“We’re talking not about money, we’re talking about pollution,” Mello said. “It’s not okay to change the date so these lights will be compliant with the law, then it won’t be a problem. No, this is about pollution. If those places are renting from WG&E, let’s hold WG&E responsible for their actions and their pollution. This shouldn’t be a problem for the people leasing lights from them. They should provide compliant lights, and solve the problem with [lights] that meet the requirement as it is.”

Matthews-Kane said “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” and said she opposed exempting the lights beyond the October 2017 date, and questioned why the date was changed.

Onyski said the date was switched “because I wanted it switched.” He said the Planning Board had originally proposed grandfathering in lights prior to 2017, but nobody on the Planning Board or City Council had notified WG&E.

“We didn’t ask for their opinion,” he said.

Onyski said he had received a list of all of the floodlights in question, which he would share with the councilors. He said the lights are over all of the wards.

“The goal is to make these places safe, so when lights do go out, they can be replaced with equivalent LED lighting,” he said.

He said with the proposed change in the amendment, impacted businesses, including churches and the Boys & Girls Club, won’t have to go to the Planning Board for a permit to replace a light that has gone out.

“No ill will, no ill intent on my part, [just] a better option,” he said.

Councilors voted 10-3 to schedule the public hearings on the amendment.

After the meeting, Flaherty said WG&E first learned that these lights did not comply with the ordinance in 2022, when it was asked by a customer to replace the bulbs in the former Moose Lodge parking area.  After doing the work, the electric foreman got a notice from the Building Department that the lights were not in compliance, and that WG&E would be fined.

Flaherty said a WG&E crew went out and adjusted the lights. The utility also sent an email to the mayor, asking what was going on, and said the order should have gone to the property owner. 

“We put the lights up. We went out and adjusted the lights a second time. then removed the lights,” Flaherty said. .

He said he has other concerns with the ordinance, such as a prohibition on any light over 16 feet. He said that limit forces WG&E to install an electrified appliance — a lamp — in a space on utility poles that is reserved for communications wires.

Currently, none of the lights that go out are being replaced without a waiver from the Planning Board for the business, and Flaherty said none have requested it. Between the creation of the ordinance in 2017 and the violation letter in June 2022, he said WG&E had touched or changed out 173 of the lights.

City Planner Jay Vinskey said after the public hearings at the Planning Board and City Council, the Planning Board will make a recommendation, and the City Council’s Zoning, Planning and Development Committee will discuss it before the amendment receives a vote of the full council.