Breckenridge's dark night skies are dreamy — but they come at a cost

This story was originally published by KUNC.

Property owner Turk Montepare stood outside his red-and-cream corner building on Ski Hill Road and Main Street in Breckenridge, Colorado.

It has several shops, including an outdoor gear store, a massage company, and a hair salon. It’s in a ski town with tall mountain peaks, but the historic trim of Montepare’s building and others on the two-lane roadway makes it seem a little more quaint.

“All of these are coming out,” Montepare said, looking at the light fixtures above the covered walkway. “If you notice those bulbs, they do shine down, but they don't want that level of diffusion upward.”

More than 30 of the building’s lights are non-compliant with the town’s Dark Sky and lighting regulations. Lights should point down and the bulb must be covered, with something like a dark shade, for example.

He is planning to install canister lights to go above the covered walkway. But Montepare also has lights directed at business signs on the outside of the building. Those are much harder to fix, so he plans to take them out.

“I'd have to put the pipe up and reconstruct that — it would cost like $2,000 per sign,” he said. “That’s expensive stuff.”

The town’s lighting regulations went into effect last summer, with a grace period through the beginning of this year. Breckenridge leaders have pushed for clear, starry dark skies for years. Research shows that dimming the lights can protect the nightscape for tourists and wildlife.

But finding the right lights and paying for them isn’t that simple. Hundreds of homes and businesses are still out of compliance.

Montepare has been trying to get his electrician in, while also working with the town on extending his compliance deadline.

“You can't do this at the snap of a finger,” he said. “It's been a little bit of a chore, but I've always been a big supporter of the town and their general policies, so I went with the flow.”

Over the last decade, communities across the country have pushed for Dark Sky certification. There’s currently 18 projects in progress in Colorado, and seven that are certified, including Breckenridge.

“It really was the goal for our community and our town council to create somewhere that people want to be, that people can look up and see the stars,” assistant town manager Julia Puester said.

Breckenridge was already moving in this direction back in 2007 with updates to its lighting code. Most of the requirements lined up with Dark Sky regulations.

“The council wanted to get a handle on the light pollution that was really proliferating throughout town,” she said. “Lighting is the easiest pollution to reverse.”

Since the dark sky designation last year, the town sent out letters, went to HOA meetings and set up a dedicated hotline and email address to answer lighting questions.

Still, Puester said there’s more than 300 properties that are noncompliant. Officials are trying to work with people, but they have to have proof.

“If they've purchased lighting, but it hasn't come in — which is the case a lot of times — and they have shown us that they have purchased those lights, we just grant some additional leeway,” she said.

Montepare is one of the residents who has had trouble finding the right lights. Being up in the high country doesn’t help, either, as there’s limited stock.

“If you go to Home Depot, they have like six — at most — dark sky lights,” he said. “There isn't a section … if there was one company that just did Dark Sky and everything was there, and I could pick stuff out, I'd be done, but I had to sit there and dig a little bit.”

It all comes at a cost. Montepare spent around $5,000 upgrading his red-and-cream building on Main Street. He also owns an apartment building in town, which cost him another $3,000, roughly. The town isn’t offering financial help since the lighting requirements have been in place since the original code was adopted back in 2007.

Still, at the end of June, Montepare got it all done, adding in black, cylindrical lights over the walkway and removing the lights from the business signs. He said it’s a big upgrade from the old lights that came with his building in the ‘70s.

Montepare has heard from other landlords that they’re apprehensive about what these Dark Sky lighting rules will actually achieve. But he thinks it will make a difference in town.

“If you've lived here for a while, you're going to notice it and appreciate what's going on,” he said. “The other 50%, I don't think so, but you can't please everybody. Hopefully people will say this was a chore worth doing.”