• Landowners, businesses, and developers are encouraged to adopt dark sky lighting practices. Subdivisions are also encouraged to adopt dark sky lighting practices in deed restrictions.

Question

•	Landowners, businesses, and developers are encouraged to adopt dark sky lighting practices.  Subdivisions are also encouraged to adopt dark sky lighting practices in deed restrictions.

Accepted Answer

One of the outstanding features of Blanco County is our dark night sky.  It’s a great sight to get a glimpse of the Milky Way on a moonless night only an hour drive from Austin and San Antonio.  The dark sky is also helpful to navigation for the many migrating birds and Monarch butterflies that pass through the county.

The Five Principals developed by Dark Sky International and the Illuminating Engineering Society for dark sky lighting are that lighting should be:
1. Useful (providing a specific function)
2. Targeted (illuminating the area of interest and nothing more)
3. Use the minimum necessary light level 
4. Controlled (not intruding on neighboring properties) 
5. Using warm colors 
     
Many affordable lighting fixtures are available for this purpose.  The Blanco County Friends of the Night Sky website and the Hill Country Alliance Issue Paper, “Preserving the Night Skies” are excellent sources for information on the benefits of preserving the dark night sky and practical examples of lighting fixtures.

Within Blanco County, the cities of Blanco and Johnson City have adopted lighting ordinances.   Some subdivisions have also adopted night sky provisions into their deed restrictions and covenants.  An example of wording for deed restrictions is provided below:

“Exterior lighting shall be limited to fully shielded path and doorway lighting, and low wattage landscape and accent lighting. “Fully shielded” means that no light emitted from a lighting fixture is emitted above the horizontal plane running through the lowest point on the fixture where light is emitted (light is directed downwards). Exterior lights shall be mounted at a height low enough to prevent casting light directly onto neighboring properties.”
Learn More… (https://bccitx.org/resources#dark-sky)

Best Practices for Developments and Landowners in Blanco County