Moreno Valley, CA Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

100 states its purpose directly: reduce light pollution and light trespass from residential and commercial fixtures while maintaining dark skies, and encourage energy-conserving lighting practices without cutting into safety or security. The standards apply to all new development and to any existing development or parking area with five or more spaces that is enlarged, reconstructed or reconfigured; older developments built before the ordinance keep following whatever foot-candle standard or photometric plan the city already approved for them unless a new lighting plan is submitted. The dark-sky purpose is enforced mainly through subsection (G)'s lighting curfew and subsection (H)'s outright prohibitions.

or the close of business, whichever comes later, and stay reduced until dawn or the business reopens; the city requires photocell-on, timer-off controls, though walkway, security and street lighting can stay on all night. Subsection (H) bans several fixture types outright regardless of wattage or shielding: overhead roof lighting, mercury vapor fixtures, adjustable-mount fixtures (except flexible landscape and ornamental lighting), any fixture aimed only toward a property line, and billboard lighting pointed upward. A handful of uses are exempt from the chapter entirely, including swimming pool lighting, code-required exit and stairway lighting, and decorative lighting approved by the community development director.

All fixtures elsewhere in the section must be full-cutoff and fully shielded so the lamp or its glow is not visible past the property line.