'Unreasonable disturbance': Burnaby bylaws no help to Coquitlam resident dealing with bright lights
A Coquitlam resident has had bright lights from a Burnaby building shining into his living room for weeks now.
Mike Chrisholm lives in a tower on Austin Avenue, right on the Coquitlam-Burnaby border. He said the light pollution is coming from a tower at the corner of Austin Road and North Road in Burnaby.
The lights turn on at dusk and turn off in the morning.
“You cannot sit in my living room with the curtains open and not be subject to an unreasonable disturbance of the enjoyment of my home,” he said.
Chrisholm said he is fine with the red lights on buildings for navigation purposes and dim lights for decorative reasons.
“But for some reason, on one of the buildings, there’s a row of lights that is not dim and is particularly bright,” he said. “I don’t know why they are out of sync with all the other lights.”
Light nuisance bylaws
The bright panel of lights Chisholm is referring to. Mike Chisholm/Submitted
The City of Burnaby does not have a bylaw that “broadly regulates architectural or decorative lighting on private buildings,” said Cole Wagner, a public affairs officer for Burnaby.
He added that its zoning bylaw has “general performance-based provisions” to reduce “minimize nuisance impacts between properties, including impacts related to glare or illumination.”
However, they do not include “specific brightness limits or technical standards,” which are often dealt with in the development and approval process.
Wagner said that the City regulates light sources through the Burnaby Sign Bylaw, regarding illuminated, flashing, animated, and digital signs. (Recently, Burnaby residents complained of a bright light shining into their home from an LED sign at Gilmore Place.)
But some Metro Vancouver cities specifically address light nuisances in bylaws.
For example, the City of Vancouver incorporated the issue into its “untidy premises” bylaw, stating that a property owner shouldn’t have a light that “unreasonably disturbs the peace, rest, enjoyment, comfort or convenience of the owner or occupier of the neighbouring real property.”
Port Coquitlam’s property standards and nuisance abatement bylaw says that property owners need to make sure that outdoor lights are “shielded by a shade or fixture such that the light source does not create a nuisance.”
New Westminster is another city with a bylaw dedicated to the issue.
“No owner or occupier of real property shall allow or permit an outdoor light to shine
directly into the living or sleeping areas of an adjacent residential property in such a way as to disturb the quiet, peace, rest, enjoyment, comfort or convenience of an occupant of the premises,” it reads.
Wagner said that when they hear concerns about light impacts from an existing building, they try to work with all parties “and explore reasonable mitigation options.”
This is what Chisholm is aiming for. He said he’s reached out to the City of Burnaby, and his hope is to resolve it amicably with the City or the building owners.
Daily Hive reached out to SHAPE properties, the managers of the Burnaby tower, for comment, but did not hear back by deadline.