Noblesville, IN Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Section 159.143(D)(4) sets the parking lot lighting standard: parking areas must have at least one foot-candle of illumination throughout, but the fixtures providing it must be fully-shielded so as not to reflect direct rays of light onto adjacent properties or streets, and so as to prevent excessive uplighting, cross-referencing the broader lighting standards in Sections 159.200 through 159.208. Those broader standards include Section 159.201, which applies to all on-site lighting of buildings, lawns, and parking areas across every zoning district, not just parking lots: it caps glare at 0.5 footcandle measured at any adjacent building or property line, or onto any public street or the vehicles on it.

Together the two sections create a two-tier shielding regime for Noblesville: parking lots specifically must use fully-shielded fixtures capable of directing light downward and preventing spill and uplighting, while every other on-site light source, from building floodlights to landscape lighting, is held to the citywide 0.5-footcandle glare ceiling even without a fixture-type mandate. A property owner installing new parking lot lighting should choose full-cutoff or fully-shielded fixtures from the outset rather than retrofitting later, since the code ties compliance directly to fixture design, not just measured output at the property line.