Lynchburg, VA Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Lynchburg's outdoor lighting chapter, Sec. 2-65, applies to all permanent exterior lighting installed on private property after its effective date, with the single exception of single-household and duplex dwellings, which Sec. 2(b) exempts outright. For everything else, from a commercial parking lot to a multi-household apartment complex, Sec. 3(a) sets the baseline shielding rule: every exterior fixture must be a full cut-off fixture with its light source completely shielded, and even fixtures that qualify for the limited exception in paragraph (c) for unshielded luminaires still must not let direct light cross a residential property line.

The purpose section, Sec. 1, frames these standards as balancing glare control against safe roadways and efficient lighting, and the applicability section requires every final site plan or conditional use permit application to include a lighting plan showing the location, type, height, and lumen output of every fixture, so the shielding requirement is checked before a certificate of occupancy issues rather than after complaints arrive. Fixtures that do not achieve a full cutoff, but that still cut off light at 90 degrees or less and shield it from abutting residential property, fall under the alternative height-based standards in paragraph (d) and Exhibit VI-16, capping mounting height at 25 feet in residential districts and 35 feet in business, institutional, and industrial districts.

A property owner may exceed those heights only by submitting a master lighting plan certified by a qualified lighting professional showing that spillover at the property lines will still stay within the thresholds set in Sec. 3. The chapter carves out one calendar exception: holiday lighting between November 15 and January 15 each year is not subject to any of these shielding or height standards under Sec. 2(d).