Community fears changes mean lights at school

BRADENTON – A proposed addition to the city's land use regulations, especially regarding outside lighting, generated some heat at the City Council meeting Wednesday night.

Lars Hafner, a resident of the neighborhood surrounding St. Stephen's Episcopal School, said he and his neighbors feared that the new rules would make it easier for the school to implement lights and night football games, which he said would hurt their property values.

”There's nothing like an issue bringing people together,“ he said.

The issue was taken off the planning commission's agenda, he said, and that led to fears that this was an end-run.

The residents are willing to talk to the school, but Hafner said they had been assured before that the school would never seek lights at the fields.

”If you pass this lighting ordinance, it will be easier for them to pass it at the Planning Council,“ he said.

The original intent of the ordinance, said Ruth Seewer, the development review manager, was to implement lighting standards in a city that had none because of the lights installed at McKechnie Field for night baseball. The code is for commercial lighting because of the stadium, she said, and there's nothing about schools in it.

The problem is, Hafner said, it could be, and he asked for specific language saying the ordinance is for public lands for sporting events or public parks.

”It's something that we cannot live with, dealing with the speed of this,“ he said. ”We need to have dialogue, but we need to have time to have dialogue.“

While councilman Bemis Smith talked about tabling the motion, the high cost of re-advertising the meetings led to an agreement to approve a motion with modified language to specify about the lighting issue.

”I support this motion with the additional language. The intent was that we had a commercial baseball stadium in the city that has lights,“ said Councilwoman Marianne Barnebey. ”This section was put in to deal with McKechnie. If we ever get another enterprise, we have the rules in place. It was set and intended for Mckechnie or any other minor or major league field or arena.“

The second reading will take place at the meeting on Feb. 10 after the motion to approve it with changes passed 5-0.