Arlington Heights, IL Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

3 of the Arlington Heights zoning code sets the design standard for every light fixture illuminating an off-street parking area, whether at a shopping center, apartment complex, or office park in Cook County's Arlington Heights. Subsection (a) requires all parking lot lighting to be shielded or otherwise optically controlled so it produces glareless illumination and does not create a nuisance on adjacent property. Subsection (c) governs the taller fixtures: any light pole erected between 20 and 40 feet above ground must use a flat-bottom, optically controlled, sharp cut-off fixture approved by the Director of Engineering, cannot use a diffusing refractor, and must maintain a luminaire-spacing-to-mounting-height ratio of 3:1 or less, which keeps light concentrated directly under the fixture rather than spread across a wide radius.

Subsection (d) covers shorter poles, zero to 20 feet: those fixtures must be built of translucent, not transparent, materials, again approved by the Director of Engineering, and diffusing refractors are barred there too. Subsection (e) caps every parking lot light pole in the village at 40 feet, full stop. A narrow carve-out in subsection (f) exempts parking installed for the public benefit by park districts, schools, and religious institutions from the 3:1 spacing ratio in (c)(3). Subsection (i) also exempts side- and rear-yard lighting standards in non-residential districts from the (d) pole-height rules when that yard does not touch a residential district or roadway and the fixtures do not glare onto traffic. The current IES Lighting Handbook supplies the technical definitions used to apply the section, per subsection (h).