SALISBURY — The Salisbury City Council approved an amendment to the city ordinances that gives the city the ability to apply nuisance lighting rules to indoor lights in multi-family residential and commercial buildings.

The ordinance change was proposed mainly to make it so that interior lighting in multi-family residential and commercial developments will not adversely affect motorists on nearby roads as well as adjacent property-owners, according to the staff report presented by Senior Planner Victoria Bailiff. The amendment simply removes references to “exterior” lighting in the city’s lighting ordinances, making it so that the rules apply to all forms of lighting in the two property types, both exterior and interior.

Bailiff also noted that the ordinance change would not affect single-family residences.

The amendment made it so that several rules now apply to interior lights, including that:

• Lights can not be made to shine directly into yards or windows of nearby residences.
• Only downward directed semi-cutoff, cutoff or full cutoff fixtures can be used.
• Flickering, rotating or flashing lights and search lights are prohibited.

The idea for the change came because there had been complaints about lighting, specifically in some commercial buildings, that was so bright at night that it was affecting neighbors inside their homes, said Mayor Pro Tem Tamara Sheffield. She specifically referred to a business near Salisbury High School which affects nearby houses until “two or three in the morning.” However, the city had no recourse to fix the issue because the ordinances did not apply.

“It’s the new style of lights that you hang in your window and they shoot light out. The poor families across the street can’t have a window open at night because it comes straight into their house like headlights. That would be why I think we’re addressing this and trying to get ahead, with the regulation, of lights as they continue to improve,” said Sheffield.

Council Member Harry McLaughlin asked how the ordinances would be enforced. Bailiff answered by saying that code enforcement does not work at night, so when the city received complaints the police department would measure the light levels at the edge of the property at night and report the data.

DeeDee Wright asked during the public comment period if the ordinance would apply to already existing light fixtures. City Attorney Graham Corriher said that typically new ordinances do not apply to pre-existing structures, that this ordinance could be applied retroactively but because changes such as lighting changes can be “resolved fairly inexpensively” when compared to larger zoning changes.

Included in the ordinance amendment was a secondary change, which updated language that made it so that outdoor features such as parking lots had to meet the “nearly impossible” lighting requirement of exactly one foot-candle along the entire property line. The amendment changed the requirement to a minimum of 0.5 foot-candles, which created some leeway for property owners, said Bailiff.

After the discussion, the city councilors voted unanimously to approve the ordinance amendment.