Gaston County, NC Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Sec. 13 of the UDO regulates outdoor lighting to control light spillage and glare, and its General Provisions in subsection A set the fixture standard that drives dark-sky compliance countywide. Sec. 1 requires any light fixture not attached to a building to be affixed to a decorative pole of metal, fiberglass, or concrete rather than a bare utility pole. Sec. 2 then requires every fixture to be either full-cutoff or semi-cutoff: a full-cutoff fixture is shielded or built so that no light rays escape above the 90-degree horizontal plane, while a semi-cutoff fixture may emit no more than five percent of its light rays above that plane.

The section carves out an important scope limit: it does not apply to individual single-family dwelling lots, but it does apply to single-family subdivisions as a whole, so a subdivision's common-area and street lighting is covered even though an individual homeowner's porch light is not. Sec. B builds on the fixture standard for building, landscape, and sign illumination, requiring floodlights and spotlights to be an approved architectural element and barring unshielded illumination of buildings or landscaping outright.