Bensalem, PA Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Section 232-354(10) treats billboard lighting as a nuisance-control condition layered onto the Township's off-premises advertising overlay near the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-95. Illumination for a static billboard face must be focused on the sign itself, and the fixtures have to sit at the bottom of the face and aim upward so no light source spills onto surrounding land. Lighting is barred outright between 12:00 midnight and sunrise for every off-premises sign except digital billboard faces, which the section exempts from the curfew but subjects to their own brightness controls under Section 232-354(13).

A digital face cannot exceed 0.3 foot candles above ambient light, measured with a foot candle meter from a pre-set distance keyed to the sign's nominal size: 150 feet for a 12-by-24-foot face, 200 feet for a 10-foot-6-inch-by-36-foot face, and 250 feet for a 14-by-48-foot face. Every digital billboard must carry automatic dimmer software or solar sensors that adjust brightness to ambient light continuously, 24 hours a day, and the manufacturer has to certify the controls meet the intensity limits. The Township treats any light output that produces glare rising to a traffic hazard, or that is otherwise detrimental to the public, as noncompliant regardless of the measured foot-candle reading.

These lighting conditions attach to the conditional use approval Township Council grants for the billboard itself, so a sign that violates them is out of compliance with its own approval, not a separate lighting ordinance.