Aiken County, SC Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

5 of Aiken County's land management regulations governs every outdoor fixture on private property, not just large commercial sites. Subsection (4) requires light fixtures to be full cutoff luminary type whose light source is concealed within an opaque housing and directed away from public thoroughfares, a mandate that covers pole-mounted lights, building-mounted lights, and decorative or display fixtures alike. Subsection (5) narrows the palette of allowed lamps to white or off-white incandescent, fluorescent, metal-halide, mercury-vapor, or color-corrected high-pressure sodium sources, so uncorrected blue-white LED floodlights and colored accent lighting fall outside the rule.

Subsection (3) caps light poles mounted within 50 feet of a street right-of-way at 20 feet in height and limits fixtures there to forward-throw only, protecting drivers from glare at entrances. Subsection (6) sets a 12-foot minimum mounting height on any pole and requires the illumination cone to miss every property line entirely. Maximum brightness is tied to the IESNA Lighting Handbook rather than a flat county number. , except for businesses open around the clock. Neon outlining a building and holiday displays are exempt as long as they stay below the roofline.

The planning and development director reviews lighting plans submitted with site plans and can order fixture changes after a certificate of occupancy issues if glare still reaches neighboring parcels.