Gwinnett County, GA Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

1 applies wherever a non-residential or multifamily development in unincorporated Gwinnett County lights a parking area or its perimeter, and it regulates the fixture itself before it regulates the light level. 1 requires every fixture, called a luminaire in the code, to be a cutoff luminaire with its light source completely concealed inside an opaque housing and recessed into that housing, and it flatly prohibits drop dish refractors, the older dome-shaped lenses that scatter light sideways and upward. 2 requires the light source itself to be an LED; any other light source has to be submitted to the Director of Planning and Development for approval, and a site can only use one approved light source type, not several.

That same subsection requires fixtures to be mounted and aimed so the light cone is never directed across a property line, which is the operative dark-sky control: it keeps glare and spill light off neighboring parcels rather than capping brightness at the source. The code separately sets pole heights, minimum 12 feet for a parking lot fixture and a maximum of 14 feet for a pedestrian walkway fixture, and a table in the same section fixes minimum, average, and maximum illumination in foot-candles for each site type, from parking lots to fuel canopies to ATM locations.

0 foot-candles. Before installing or replacing site lighting, subsection D requires the applicant to submit a full lighting plan to Planning and Development showing fixture locations, mounting heights, a photometric schedule for each fixture type, and an illumination summary calculated on a 10-foot grid across the site.