Outer Battery resident 'severely disappointed' by city's response to lighting dispute

The St. John's Outer Battery resident at the centre of a protest against a security lighting system says she's disappointed — but not necessarily surprised — at the city's decision to deny opening a door that would prevent the situation from continuing.

Christina Smith has led the campaign against her neighbour, Colin Way, since May. Way has installed bright floodlights on his home that shine intensely across the entire neighbourhood. Smith has told CBC News the lights are a health and safety concern in the Outer Battery and across the city.

All city councillors, with the exception of St. John's Deputy Mayor Sheilagh O'Leary, voted against a motion to ask the provincial government to make an amendment to the City of St. John's Act that would allow the city to enact a nuisance lighting bylaw.

"I was severely disappointed," Smith said Tuesday.

"The bylaw that Calgary has, the nuisance lighting bylaw, is three lines long. This needn't take a lot of research. They could have this done and keep going on the nuisance bylaw and have a wonderful bylaw in place when they finally get the City of St. John's Act updated."

Smith was the organizer of a largely attended protest outside city hall that called on the city to take action. Liberal St. John's East-Quidi Vidi MHA John Abbott attended the protest — which Smith says she and residents were moved by — and criticized the city's response.

"I'm still amazed at the city's response. On many levels. Just given the antics of the past couple of weeks, where the deputy mayor says she's putting in a motion and then the mayor came out to basically undo that, which I really couldn't understand, and then threw something else on the table," Abbott said.

St. John's Mayor Danny Breen has been against the idea of the amendment since it was first brought up. He has said he would prefer the City of St. John's Act be entirely reworked instead of being amended on a single point. He refused to answer questions from CBC News on the topic Tuesday.

Ward 2 Coun. Ophelia Ravencroft appeared at the Monday meeting by video conference, citing safety concerns in the council chambers due to vitriol surrounding the issue on social media.

Ravencroft said Wednesday she doesn't regret voting the way she did. She said a new bylaw would take up to a year to push through, would not apply retroactively and would not force Way to take down his lights.

"Whether I voted yes or I voted no, existing light, unfortunately, would have stayed up and we still would have been pressing for enabling legislation under the new City of St. John's Act," she said.

"The question on my end is about timeline. I hope that [residents] understand that by pushing for that, by pushing for that overall revised legislation, we are pushing for legislation that will have amendments, so many amendments, that it will allow us to deal not only with learning from issues like the one in the Outer Battery … but many other issues as well."

Ravencroft said her understanding is that the revised City of St. John's Act is imminent and any further consultation on a single amendment would delay the process. She hopes the new legislation will give them the power to make changes on their own to deal with situations like this.

Following Monday's vote, Smith said residents woke up to a surprise from Way on Tuesday.