A Qualicum Beach councillor hopes to provide town staff with a new tool to deal with light spillage related to LED lights.
Coun. Scott Harrison said he received a complaint from a resident whose neighbour installed the especially bright lights horizontally across their property.
“It’s actually really obnoxious because those LED lights are very powerful,” Harrison said during council's meeting on June 18.
He told the PQB News that different communities have handled the issue of "light spillage" in different ways, and he is not yet sure if he will look to create a new bylaw, or add the lights to the existing nuisance bylaw.
Harrison said he can think of at least one house in town where the LED lights shine “straight onto the neighbour’s property and doesn’t seem to be an accident”.
“You don’t want to micromanage every aspect of every citizen’s home," he said, and added the idea is for council to provide staff a tool for cases when the lights are "clearly having an impact on their neighbour and it’s not something that’s being done in good faith.”
Harrison will write up a report, based on what other municipalities have done to address LED light trespass, and forward it to town staff.
He anticipates council will look at the issue in the fall.
“Hopefully we can look at what the next steps are,” he said.
