Chino, CA Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Section 20.10.090(A) requires outdoor lighting on private and public property to be "designed to provide safe and adequate lighting while minimizing light spillage to adjacent properties" and to use energy-efficient fixtures and lamps. High-traffic vehicular and pedestrian areas must be lit to a minimum of one foot-candle at ground level during hours of darkness. Parking facilities need a minimum average of one and a half foot-candles, but the code also caps them: maximum average illumination cannot exceed three foot-candles for commercial developments or two foot-candles for multifamily residential and industrial developments, both measured at ground level. Subsection (A)(5) sets the residential spillover limit directly: "No lighting on private property shall produce an illumination level greater than one foot candle on any property within a residential zoning district." Permanently installed lighting also cannot "blink, flash, or be of unusually high intensity or brightness," and lighting in or near the OS2 open-space zoning district must be designed to minimally impact habitat areas.

Subsection (B) governs fixtures. Freestanding outdoor light fixture height is capped at twelve feet on residential property carrying a non-residential use, fourteen feet on non-residential property adjacent to residential development, and twenty-five feet everywhere else, with fixtures required to be no taller than necessary to meet the average illumination standard. Subsection (B)(2) requires every fixture to be "shielded, recessed, and directed downward and away from adjoining properties and public rights-of-way to reduce light spillage," the section's core shielding requirement. The chapter was adopted by Ordinance 2010-05 and amended by Ordinance 2016-005.