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

300(9)(B) directs that hooded lights for nighttime illumination be used for parking areas, shipping and receiving docks, and industrial development, explaining that hooded fixtures direct the light beam toward the ground where dark pavement will not reflect it and spill it onto neighboring uses. The Code phrases this as what fixtures 'should' be used rather than an absolute mandate, but it operates as an enforceable design standard because it sits inside the broader glare-attenuation rule of subsection (9): light and glare from any use or new development must be attenuated so glare is not visible beyond the property line.

200 backs that up by barring approval of any zoning permit unless the applicable performance standards, including this one, are satisfied. In practice, that means a project proposing unshielded floodlights over a parking lot, loading dock, or industrial yard gets conditioned by staff to switch to downward-directed, hooded fixtures before the permit is signed off, alongside the companion measures for vegetation screening of parking areas and nonreflective windows on office and research buildings found in the same subsection.