At its spring town meeting, held April 27, 2026, representatives overwhelmingly approved an outdoor-lighting bylaw that, in principle, sets the stage for a dramatic reduction in overlighting, glare, and light trespass in the coming years. The effort was spearheaded by DarkSkyMass’s Kelly Beatty (who lives in Chelmsford) in concert with the town’s planning board.

Chelmsford (pop. 36,000) was among the first towns in Massachusetts to adopt outdoor-lighting regulations (in 2000), but since then those basic standards were overshadowed by the advent of LED lighting and an inability to enforce the bylaw’s simple requirements. Although the town’s planning board required new developments submit acceptable lighting plans, many residents and businesses installed strong, unshielded LED lighting anyway in violation of the bylaw.

Beatty patterned the new Chelmsford bylaw after DarkSkyMass’s template, but he opted to pursue a general bylaw (rather than the typical zoning bylaw) for several reasons. First, zoning bylaws usually do not apply to municipal lighting. Second, a general bylaw requires only a simple majority (not a 2/3 majority) for adoption.

Third, and most crucially, a zoning bylaw cannot force existing bad lighting to adhere to new regulations because any existing nonconforming fixture is “grandfathered.” By contrast, a general bylaw can declare all bad lighting to be nonconforming, regardless of when it was installed. The Chelmsford bylaw then provides a 10-year “grace period” (usually called a sunset clause) to bring all lighting into conformance. It also strengthens the process for enforcement — typically a weakness of other such bylaws.

However, when submitted for consideration at the spring town meeting last year, the bylaw drew pushback both from residents (who didn’t like having to replace their existing security lights) and from the town itself (which can’t afford to bring its street- and area lighting into conformance). So the 2025 draft was retooled to set strict requirements for commercial installations but only recommendations for residents.

Still, the topic engendered long discussion. After a 10-minute presentation by Beatty and Chris Lavallee (chair of the Planning Board), the town-meeting reps debated and questioned the proposal for another 45 minutes before approving the bylaw with a 104-15-1 vote. Click here to see the entire presentation, debate, and vote, and here’s the newly adopted Chelmsford bylaw. “A lot was learned in this two-year process,” Beatty says, and he’ll work with DarkSkyMass’s policy committee to infuse the existing bylaw template with some of the “lessons learned” in Chelmsford.