Clarkstown, NY Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Clarkstown's Hamlet Center Zoning Districts impose the town's most detailed outdoor-lighting standard under § 290-7.2K(7), "Exterior lighting standards." Every fixture used for signs, walkways, parking lots and security lighting must be full cutoff or recessed, projecting light downward only, with no exposed bulbs or glare visible from the public way or neighboring parcels, and no light permitted to spill across the property line. Landscape lighting may point upward only in limited amounts, only with Architectural Historic Review Board (AHRB) approval, only from fully shielded fixtures with no visible bare bulbs, and cannot exceed three feet in height. Parking and security lighting poles are capped at 20 feet.

A related provision, § 290-7.2I(1)(a)[4], requires that all parking and security lighting serving structured or at-grade parking within the district come from "fully shielded, downward-facing lamps which direct the light only into the immediate parking areas as required for use," reinforcing the shielding rule specifically for garage and lot lighting. Sign lighting carries its own companion rule at § 290-7.2K(6)(b)[1](b): external sign lighting must use shielded, downward-facing lamps aimed only at the sign face, with bare bulbs kept out of view from the public way.

These standards apply only inside the mapped HC-C, HC-VC and HC-WN districts and are administered through AHRB design review on any new construction, addition or exterior renovation requiring a building permit or site plan review; they do not extend to the incorporated Villages of Nyack, Upper Nyack or South Nyack, which regulate lighting under their own separate village codes.