How do we convert our HOA streetlights to LED?

By OurHOA · General information · Revised September 24, 2026

How an HOA board converts streetlights to LED: who owns the poles, utility LED rates and stranded costs, color temperature, glare, bids, rebates and owner notice.

Part of the HOA board handbook: vendors, projects and upkeep.

Who owns the poles decides what kind of project this is

An LED conversion is one of two different jobs, and the board should know which one it has before anyone calls a vendor. If the electric utility owns the poles and fixtures, the board is negotiating a rate change. The utility swaps the heads, moves the account to an LED rate, and may bill the association a one-time charge. If the association owns the poles, fixtures and wiring, the board is running a capital project. It writes a spec, gets bids, pays a contractor and keeps the savings. Plenty of communities have both, so settle ownership pole by pole. Our guide on who pays for streetlights in an HOA explains how to read the plat, the declaration and the electric bill to find out.

Build a pole inventory before asking for prices

Walk the community after dark with a phone map. For each light, write down the pole number from the tag, the location, the fixture type (cobra head on an arm, or a post-top lantern), whether it is lit, and any damage to the pole or base. Then match the list against the electric bills. Utility-owned lights usually show up as a count of fixtures on an unmetered lighting line, billed per light per month. Association-owned lights usually run off one or more meters, each with its own bill. If the bill says 42 lights and you counted 38, find the missing 4 before you negotiate. The association may have paid for fixtures that came down years ago. Ask the utility for its list of lights billed to your account, with pole numbers, and reconcile the two. Keep the finished spreadsheet. It becomes the bid scope.

If the utility owns the lights

Ask the utility's outdoor lighting desk these questions in writing. Does the utility offer an LED rate for the fixture types on our account? What will it charge to convert each light? Will it bill us for the undepreciated value of the old fixtures it removes? What is the monthly rate per light now, and what will it be after? That third charge is the one boards miss. A 2016 Department of Energy paper on outdoor lighting calls fixtures pulled before the end of their typical 20-year life stranded assets, and says utilities may require compensation for them. The same paper describes West Palm Beach, Florida, which paid Florida Power & Light up front for the fixtures and installation on utility-owned lights and saw its rate drop from $9.96 to $2.71 per light per month. Those are one city's numbers from a decade ago, not a quote for your street. Divide the upfront cost by the monthly savings across all your lights to get a payback period in months, and put that math in the board packet. Investor-owned utilities set lighting rates in tariffs approved by the state utility commission, and co-ops and city utilities set their own, so a 40-light HOA is usually choosing among published options, not negotiating a custom price. Never let a contractor swap heads on utility poles. The association does not own them.

If the association owns the lights

This is a capital project. Write the scope from the inventory: the number of heads by type, the mounting, the voltage, the target light output, the color temperature, the shielding, the warranty in years, removal and disposal of the old fixtures, and a unit price for pole or wiring repairs found during the work. Our guide on how to write an HOA request for proposal covers the bid packet and the side-by-side comparison. Paying for it is where state law comes in. If the reserve study has a lighting line, replacing those fixtures is an ordinary reserve expense. In Florida, section 720.303(6)(h) says reserve funds may be used only for authorized reserve expenditures unless the members approve another use in advance by majority vote at a meeting where a quorum is present. In Colorado, section 38-33.3-209.5(1)(b)(IX) requires a written policy stating when the association has a reserve study prepared and whether there is a funding plan for the work it recommends, so give the new fixtures a line and a useful life in the next update. In Texas, read the declaration and any reserve policy the board has adopted for the same answer. Before ordering, ask the utility whether it pays a rebate for LED outdoor lighting on customer-owned fixtures, and search the DSIRE database, run by the N.C. Clean Energy Technology Center at N.C. State University, for programs in your state. Read the rebate terms before the purchase order goes out.

Specify color, shielding and output

After a conversion, owners complain about the light itself far more often than the bill. Color temperature. It is measured in kelvin, and lower numbers look warmer. The American Medical Association's 2016 report on LED community lighting encourages 3000K or lower for outdoor installations such as roadways, and says LED lighting should be properly shielded to minimize glare. The lighting industry disputed parts of that report, but for a residential street 3000K or lower is a sensible default. Write the number into the spec so no bidder substitutes a cheaper 4000K or 5000K head. Shielding. Ask for full cutoff fixtures that send no light above horizontal, and for house-side shields on any pole close to a bedroom window. Spec sheets usually list a BUG rating, for backlight, uplight and glare, with each scored from 0 up; lower numbers mean less stray light. Compare them across bids. Output. A new LED head does not need to be brighter than the lamp it replaces. Match the old light level or go a little lower. If the fixture can dim on a schedule, ask what the controls cost.

State and local lighting rules to check

Texas. Local Government Code section 240.032(a) requires the commissioners court of every county with any part within 57 miles of the McDonald Observatory to adopt orders regulating outdoor lighting in unincorporated areas, and section 240.031 defines outdoor lighting to include street lights. A West Texas community should get the county order before choosing fixtures. Florida. Section 161.163 directs the Department of Environmental Protection to designate coastal areas used by nesting sea turtles and to set guidelines for local rules on beachfront lighting, and many coastal counties and cities have adopted ordinances. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's wildlife lighting guidance is low, long and shielded: mount fixtures as low as the job allows, use long-wavelength light above 560 nanometers such as amber, orange or red LEDs, and shield the source. A beachfront community that installs standard white LEDs can run afoul of its local ordinance. Colorado and everywhere else. Call the city or county planning office and ask whether an outdoor lighting ordinance applies to fixtures on private streets. Rules vary by state, by city and by your own governing documents, and this guide is general education, not legal advice.

Pilot one street, then tell owners before the trucks come

Install two or three of the chosen fixtures on one street for two weeks. Walk it at night and ask the owners on that street what they think. Adjusting a spec after three fixtures is cheap. Doing it after sixty is not. Sample motion: "Move to approve [Contractor]'s bid of $[amount] to replace [number] association-owned streetlight fixtures with 3000K full cutoff LED fixtures, paid from the [lighting reserve line], with installation to begin after the pilot on [street] and at least 14 days' notice to owners." Notice paragraph for owners: "Starting the week of [date], crews will replace the streetlight heads on [streets] with LED fixtures. The new lights are warm white (3000K) and shielded to keep light on the street and out of homes. Each light may be dark for up to a day during the swap. If a new light shines into your windows after the work, email [address] with your house number and the pole number, and we will ask the installer to adjust or shield it." The 14 days is a board choice, not a legal deadline.

A sample timeline

Month 1: night inventory, bill reconciliation, ownership confirmed pole by pole. Month 2: written rate request to the utility, or the bid packet out to three or more lighting contractors. Check for rebates. Month 3: bids or the utility's offer back. Build the comparison sheet and install the pilot fixtures. Month 4: pilot feedback, then a vote at a properly noticed board meeting. Months 5 and 6: owner notice, installation, and a night walk with the contractor to build a punch list of dark, misaimed or glaring fixtures. Afterward: send the new fixture list and cost to the reserve study preparer. Utility work runs on the utility's calendar, not yours. In the DOE paper, West Palm Beach spent three to four months negotiating with its utility and about six months installing 1,451 lights.

Mistakes that make boards do it twice

Buying the whitest, brightest head on the spec sheet. It generates most of the complaints. Skipping the stranded cost question, then finding a charge for the old fixtures on the first bill after conversion. Promising owners a savings figure before the utility's rate is in writing. Quote the number only after the agreement is signed. Buying a retrofit kit for the old housings without asking how it performs. Kits cost less, but the housing and lens were designed around a different lamp. Ask for the kit's light distribution data in your fixture, and price a full fixture replacement alongside it. Dropping the lights from the reserve study because LEDs last longer. They still have a service life, and the poles, bases and underground wiring age on their own schedule.

Sources

These guides are general education for HOA boards and residents, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by your community's governing documents - check with a professional for your situation.

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