Council Update: Parks Lighting Strategy

Agenda, January 14

Park Lighting Strategy:
Some work that I initiated a few years ago has come to fruition: the Parks Lighting Strategy was approved by Council at our Tuesday meeting. The issue around lighting in our parks is that HRM really hasn’t had any sort of formal plan or program. Existing lighting has been added on an ad hoc basis and HRM still officially closes parks across the board at 10:00 pm. With more and more people living in multi-unit buildings without yards of their own, and with more and more parks doubling as active transportation routes, there is a growing need for access outside of traditional hours. In District 5, I get frequent requests for lighting at Sullivan’s Pond, the Dartmouth Common, and the Harbour Trail. With no formal lighting program or policy guidance, there has been little prospect of effectively responding to those asks.

To address HRM’s policy and program deficiencies around parks lighting, I concluded that the municipality really needed a comprehensive approach. So in 2021, I made a motion requesting a lighting strategy that would both update policy and create a program for park lighting. Staff returned in 2022 with a report agreeing on the need for a strategy and setting out the scope. Work got underway in 2023 and the completed strategy arrived at Council last week. The wheels of government turn slowly, but they do turn!

Council approved the new parks lighting strategy and it is genuinely good work. The strategy identifies three main types of lighting for parks: pathways, facilities (stuff like tennis and basketball courts), and placemaking (think lighting around trees in the Public Gardens, or the fountain at Sullivan’s Pond). The Strategy commits HRM to:

• Consider lighting in all new park projects (it’s no longer an optional consideration)
• Evaluate the need for lighting in existing parks
• Ensure lighting is appropriate for a park setting, which means warm (yellowish) light that is shielded to minimize light pollution and that is possibly even motion activated or timed to turn-off or dim depending on the time of night
• Seek opportunities to use emerging technologies, such as solar lighting and smart systems. The potential for solar is particularly exciting because one of the major limiting factors in installing traditional lighting is the significant expense of underground electrical conduits. Solar lighting could remove the need for conduits in many places, greatly reducing the disruption and cost of adding lighting into existing spaces
• Complete site analyses and safety assessments in considering lighting projects. The connection between lighting and safety isn’t as clearcut as we might assume because lighting can create dark shadowed areas and leave folks blinded to the shadows. What lighting clearly does do though is makes people more comfortable in using spaces at night. 78% of respondents to HRM’s public engagement on park lighting indicated that they would be more willing to use park facilities and pathways at night if they were well lit. Well-used spaces are safer spaces so if lighting a park path leads to a lot more people using it, the net result should be a much safer space

In terms of park hours, HRM isn’t going to adjust open hours across the board, but will adjust on a case-by-case basis. A blanket 10:00 pm closing time won’t necessarily be the rule going forward. An urban park like Ferry Terminal Park or Sullivan’s Pond is a very different environment than a space like the Cole Harbour Commons. Staff intend to amend the Parks bylaw during its next regular update to make it clear that closed hours don’t apply to lighted pathways that join destinations.

I’m very happy with the work that has gone into the lighting strategy and I’m confident that going forward HRM will design better parks as a result of all this work. What still concerns me though is the other half of the intent behind my original motion: the need for a retrofit program to respond to request for lighting in existing parks. There is no shortage of potential parks either! The Lighting Strategy identifies a list of locations for potential lighting projects. In District 5, these include Birch Cove Park (some lighting already exists, but it’s not complete), Brookdale Crescent Park, Maybank Park, Grahams Grove Park, Henry Findlay Park, Findlay Community Centre Park, Sullivan’s Pond, and variety of tennis and basketball courts. That’s just District 5! When you consider all the possible locations for lighting across HRM, the result is a pretty big list!

To tackle the list of potential lighting projects, the report and strategy recommends that the CAO incorporate lighting projects into future budgets and business plans. I think this is the one big flaw in what staff brought forward. A vague statement about future business plans isn’t an implementation strategy, it’s really not much of a commitment at all. A lot could get done, or very little.

My fear is that since Parks and Rec is always the most pressed department in terms of capital funding, the absence of a clear plan will leave the department trying to ineffectively fit lighting into their already stretched capital budget. That approach probably wouldn’t matter for places like Sullivan’s Pond where the upcoming replacement of the aging retaining walls around the water’s edge creates an opportunity to add lighting, but not for places like the Dartmouth Common or Harbour Trail where there aren’t any upcoming major capital projects. Other strategies that have come to Council around dog parks, splash pads, and washrooms have identified potential projects, but also potential budgets and timelines, and that’s what the Lighting Strategy needs as well. The Strategy is really good, but for it to have a real impact, more work is needed to plan for implementation.

So I moved a motion for a supplemental report on a retrofit program. Council approved my supplemental report request and I’m hoping that work around implementing the Strategy will come back in time for consideration in the 2026 budget. Council will then be able to decide how aggressive we want to be about adding lighting to existing parks rather than just letting implementation drift.

Other:

• Registered 1300 Oxford Street in Halifax as a heritage property
• Approved a less than market value lease with the Early Childhood Interventionists Association of Nova Scotia for space in the Sackville Heights Community Centre
• Reviewed results of the 2024 residents survey
• Transferred funding amongst transit projects to pay for new modems as part of fare payment modernization (necessary to get to tap functionality)
• Approved Councillor appointments from the standing committees including Councillor Morse to be HRM’s representative at the Canadian Urban Transit Association, Councillors Purdy and White to the Accessibility Advisory Committee, Councillors Hinch and Young to the African Descent Advisory Committee, and Councillors Hinch and Hartling to the Women and Gender Equity Advisory Committee
• Received the annual presentation from the Property Valuation Services Corporation on assessments changes (relevant as we enter into budget discussion this year)
• Directed staff to remove the pickleball lines from the courts at Castle Hill Park in Clayton Park due to noise issues that can’t be readily addressed and plan to replace those courts nearby
• Scheduled a heritage hearing to consider registering 6 First Avenue in Bedford as a heritage property
• Requested a staff report to review land use policies regarding construction and demolition sites