A plan to replace street lighting in Amagansett’s historic district saw a consultant from L.K. McLean Associates, civil engineers headquartered in Brookhaven, propose an outline last month for 46 to 50 “historical style” light fixtures to the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee. On Monday night, the plan drew a strong critique from New York State’s representative of DarkSky International, which advocates for protection of the night sky from light pollution.
Susan Harder, who had been invited to the committee’s monthly meeting to provide input on the plan, was disdainful of the process. “There is not a soul working for the town that has any knowledge or experience with lighting,” she said. When “the out-of-town consultants are hired,” she went on, “they’re paid to develop this lighting plan,” but, she said, they assign the task to the lighting manufacturer, which delivers the plan at no charge. “So we’re paying for something which they’re doing for free, but of course when the manufacturer is designing the lighting they’re doing it in order to sell more lights. It’s a conflict of interest.”
Ideally, she said, the town would hire an independent certified lighting designer. “I don’t do this professionally,” she said, “but I know people who do, and I have made recommendations in the past to do this, but the town will hire architects and engineers and consultants” who, she maintained, “have no training in lighting design.”
In East Hampton Town at present, Ms. Harder said, “because it’s always been haphazardly applied by people who don’t have the knowledge of lighting design, we have a mishmash of streetlights.” Her own criteria for the “post tops” — the light fixtures mounted on posts that are contemplated for Amagansett Main Street — “specifically outlines what you need to ask for.” L.K. McLean Associates, she said, “could do this if you are very specific about what you want. You don’t want to just leave it to the lighting manufacturer to come up with the spacing and the light levels and the type of LED.”
In the absence of the town hiring a qualified lighting designer, Ms. Harder distributed to committee members a series of recommendations, including a requirement that the fixtures chosen for Main Street be certified by an independent agency to meet Illuminating Engineering Society design designation as “zero uplight”; that the design, placement, and layout meet maximum and minimum light levels for better adaptation and invisibility and are based on I.E.S. zones designated residential or very light commercial; that the height of the poles and lowest emitting part of the fixtures be below the tree canopy; that timing controls meet the required use and not dusk-to-dawn lighting, with dimming where possible; that the Kelvin, a measurement indicating the “color temperature” of a light source, not exceed 1,800 to 2,200 for better night vision and reduction in sky glow, and that a post-installation check be conducted to assure compliance.
“These criteria were not used for the current LED streetlight replacements,” the document concludes. “The result is glare, energy waste, lack of uniformity, and greater skyglow due to high Kelvin. Plus, no review was conducted of current streetlights for the actual public safety benefit.”
“We’ve started to understand how much of an impact lighting has” on flora and fauna, Ms. Harder added. “Most creatures are nocturnal . . . all-night lighting impacts them in a multitude of ways. They’re foraging, they’re nesting, they’re mating. . . . This is one of the reasons, too, that we want to have a fully shielded fixture, zero uplight, and not excessive light. The lighting designers understand exactly how much light you need to see well.”
Light, she said, is like salt: “Too much salt does not make something better.”
L.K. McLean Associates, Ms. Harder said bluntly, “has been responsible for some of the worst municipal lighting I’ve ever seen.” The town, she said, should have lighting plans reviewed by the Planning Department, “because the Planning Department at least has some experience in reviewing lighting plans.”
The town board updated the residential lighting code last year, noted Councilman Tom Flight, the board’s liaison to the committee. The code was amended to permit residential and commercial lighting to illuminate individual trees only, he said, whereas previously, a light source could light multiple trees. Also, the total amount of light from a fixture illuminating each tree was reduced from 1,000 to 550 initial lumens. Light sources cannot exceed 2,700 Kelvin, and a light fixture must be as close to a specific tree as possible, project all its light above the horizontal plane, be aimed directly at a specific tree, and not be visible across the property line.
Also new is an 11 p.m. cutoff for such lighting, whereas before, it was midnight. Lighting can begin no earlier than 4 p.m., or an hour before sunset. The 11 p.m. cutoff also applies to lighting designed to illuminate foliage, pathways, and landscape features.
“I wish that was being enforced,” Ms. Harder told Mr. Flight, who said he would raise the topic with Ordinance Enforcement officers.
“We need to shut off some of these lights that are not serving any useful purpose,” Ms. Harder added, noting that the federal Department of Energy states that a significant amount of outdoor light is wasted. “And it’s easy. These dusk-to-dawn-on situations out here are really unnecessary.”
In other news from the committee’s final meeting of 2025, the chairwoman, Rona Klopman; vice chairwoman, Vicki Littman, and secretary, Dawn Brophy, were all nominated to continue in their respective roles.
ACAC will not meet next month. Its next meeting will be on Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m. in the Amagansett School.
