Old Dominion Freight Line Works With N.Y. Town to Cut Night Glare
GLENVILLE, N.Y. — It appears the owners of Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. are trying to be good neighbors.
Company representatives returned to town earlier this month to see what can be done about the glare of the lights at Old Dominion’s local facility, which bothers nearby residents. It’s not the first time representatives have come.
Since the trucking business built a facility on Seventh Street in Glenville in 2014, several residents on Amsterdam Road have had issues with the brightness of the company’s lights and claim they point at and light up their homes and properties all night long.
Over the past two years, Pete Looker of Amsterdam Road has rallied his neighbors and has made several complaints to the Town Board because he feels the lights are not in compliance with the Town Code’s lighting regulations.
Old Dominion has previously sent a lighting contractor to the site to make some adjustments, but the six lights atop 35-foot-poles in the back of its property continue to illuminate residents’ homes.
Earlier this month, however, the company flew a representative from its corporate office in North Carolina to the local site and also hired a third-party lighting contractor from Boston. The pair visited the Glenville location together.
Looker said the visit was a surprise.
“They pulled up in front of my driveway and parked unannounced,” he recalled. “Then they came out and started looking at the lights in the road and driveway. I went up and introduced myself, and they met with me for about an hour and 45 minutes.”
Looker said he didn’t get the names of lighting contractor or the woman from Old Dominion, but the lighting engineer “did most of the talking.”
“They kept saying, ‘We’re going to do something because our main concern is to make everyone happy,’ ” Looker recounted. “They said, ‘We’re going to do better, and we’re going to work on this.’ ”
Looker said the lighting contractor and Old Dominion employee discussed coming up with a plan within the next month that would appease the residents without jeopardizing employee safety on the lot.
“They haven’t come back with a plan yet, but the lighting contractor did commit to us that they will be doing something soon,” Town Supervisor Chris Koetzle said last week.
Because the lights have been found to be in conformance with the site plan approved by the town, the company is not required to make any changes.
“We didn’t have to do this, but we want to,” an employee from the Old Dominion site in Glenville said. “We are working with the homeowners, and I will let them know when the contractor is coming back.
“We want to do what we can to be a good neighbor.”
Old Dominion’s corporate office did not return calls or e-mails for comment last week.
Looker said he’s optimistic but not convinced the necessary improvements will be made.
“When I spoke to the lighting guy and asked him about the unshaded lights, he answered in a roundabout way like a politician and never responded to particular concerns,” Looker said. “They didn’t want a copy of the town law. I got a brush-off feeling like they’re going to do what they can to make us happy, but their main concern was to light up their facility to ‘make it safe.’ … They never once said they’ll keep the light on their property, but I guess we’ll have to see.”
Old Dominion Freight Line ranks No. 11 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
