Yucca Valley Planning Commission updates Outdoor Lighting Ordinance to include shielding of string lights

The Yucca Valley Community Center’s Yucca Room felt slightly more formal last night, with two tables filled with literature from the International Dark Sky Association and a four-panel info stand that addressed Wildlife, Our Stars, Public Health, Energy, and Money at risk with our compromised dark skies. The information was provided by Dark Skies Advocate Diane Hartl, who was the first member of the public to comment: 

“My mission statement is to unite the Morongo Basin in protecting and restoring our extraordinary night sky through responsible lighting, community education and regional cooperation with the goal of achieving dark sky international recognition and preserving the stars for generations to come,” said Hartl.

President of the Morongo Basin Conservation Association Steve Bardwell echoed concerns of string lights from last meeting that the Commission says they’re actively updating:

“One thing people complain about the most is string lighting. The fact that it can be really objectionable with a lot of light causing a lot of glare, so that’s something that really should be looked at. The way the current ordinance is written it’s unclear whether string lights are allowed and what the shielding consists of, that needs to be taken care of. The county’s ordinance restricts the total number of lumens for a site that’s employed in string lighting and they also limit the number of lumens per bulb,” said Bardwell.

Senior Planner Jared Jerome confirmed that all string lighting is subject to shielding and is part of the update to the ordinance. Vice Chair Henderson added that “the updates to the ordinance have a lot of people’s fingerprints all over it” from the public’s suggestions and hopes to see Yucca Valley achieve Dark Sky International Recognition. 

“One of the things that we did add in there, and I don’t know what other communities have like this, but we added in there an annual report, an annual grade for the community: how we’re doing, what is the latest technology, how can we improve this every year. So I don’t know what other communities have made that suggestion, but I think that’s important,” said Henderson. 

The Commission agreed they all felt comfortable with the updates to the Outdoor Lighting Ordinance, and Vice Chair Henderson made a motion to file and receive the report, to be passed on to the Town Council.