Frederick County, VA Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

A is the county's core dark-sky standard: all outdoor lighting fixtures must be designed to be fully shielded, aimed, downcast (full-cutoff), located and maintained so they shield adjacent properties and do not produce or direct glare onto adjacent properties or a road right-of-way. The code defines shielding precisely: the fixture must be built so all emitted light projects below the horizontal plane of the fixture's lowest point, and any structural part providing that shielding must be permanently affixed so no light can escape above the horizontal plane.

Directional control shields are required wherever needed to limit stray light and keep any light source from being visible from, or causing glare on, an adjacent property or road right-of-way. Recreational-facility lighting and lighting used to illuminate flags, statues, signs or other objects on a pole or platform must specifically be full-cutoff with internal or external glare-control louvers, though object lighting may instead use directionally shielded fixtures aimed and confined to the object. The standard applies to a new fixture installation or to any replacement, defined broadly to include a change of fixture type, a change in mounting height or location, or any change that raises the footcandle output, so swapping in a brighter bulb can trigger compliance. B.