Navajo County, AZ Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Article 18, adopted to fight light pollution, waste, and glare while still allowing nighttime safety and security lighting, opens with a purpose statement in Section 1801 and then sets the operating standard in Section 1802. Item 2 names low-pressure sodium fixtures as the county's currently preferred light source for their efficiency, and item 3 is the ordinance's core shielding mandate: outdoor fixtures, including residential and commercial security lighting, must be aimed and shielded so the direct illumination stays confined to the property boundary of the source, with particular care that no light falls onto or across a public or private street.

Section 1804 grandfathers fixtures already installed before the ordinance took effect, letting them remain nonconforming indefinitely unless the owner later changes the use, replaces the fixture, or substantially repairs it, at which point compliance kicks in; fossil-fuel-combustion lighting and federal or state-operated facilities carry their own separate exemptions. Compliance is checked at the building-permit counter: Section 1805 requires anyone applying for a building permit that includes outdoor lighting to submit plans and fixture descriptions showing compliance, which the Chief Building Official reviews before issuing the permit, and any later substitution of fixtures needs the Official's approval too.

The rule reaches every unincorporated parcel from Heber-Overgaard's cabin lots to commercial frontage in Joseph City, but not the reservations or the six incorporated towns, which set their own lighting rules.