As an update to a story last week (“County tackles research park’s ‘awful’ lighting”), the County Planning Commission approved a lighting waiver for additions to UVA Foundation’s (www.uvafoundation.com) North Fork Research Park off Route 29N. The commission denied a similar request in November because the lights didn’t meet the definition of full-cut off, meaning some of the light spilled upward to create light pollution. So research park designers went back to the drawing board and brought back fixtures that remedy the issue. “[The new fixtures are] really quite good,” says Philip Ianna, UVA astronomy professor emeritus, who was in large part responsible for the County’s lighting policy. Ianna explains that the redesigned lights have the bulb set in the top, with no reflective surface at the bottom, helping to keep the light out of the air.
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