Putting a price on light and health
Seattle has topped many national lists but its 2019 designation as “gloomiest place in America” was not a highlight. BestPlaces awarded Seattle a "gloom" score of 90.9 based annual cloud cover, average hours of daylight and winter precipitation.
As if we needed more proof, the UW reports Seattleites and others living in northern latitudes suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) at a rate 10-30% over those in sunnier climes.
There’s no doubt about it--sun is sought-after in Seattle. It’s a commodity one downtown tower extolls by promising “sunrise, sunset and every ray in between.” Another describes a lifestyle with “the art of light, and life.”
Light and life are intertwined. Recent DRA posts have explored the amount of daylight required for physical and mental health. It’s a connection recognized internationally in Right to Light development standards that require new buildings maintain adequate indoor light to their occupants and neighbors.
But in environmentally progressive and sun-starved Seattle there are no standards or protection for daylight in the built environment.
Design Review Guidelines and Municipal Code refer generally to sunlight and shadows on open space. The State Environmental Protection Act (SEPA) requests big projects provide information on impacts from glare and shadow, but there’s no criteria to measure and evaluate elimination of light.
This has led to proposed urban towers blocking over 75% of neighbors’ existing daylight, in some cases creating situations of 100% biological darkness that require electric light for basic vision even in the brightest summer months.
Despite those dark numbers there’s a ray of hope. In a 2018 appeal, the Seattle Hearing Examiner agreed significant loss of light to neighbors and ensuing health impacts have not been adequately addressed.
The case will advance to a courtroom later this year. Until then new towers will continue to place access to light at a premium. The question is, at what cost to public health?
