Orem, UT Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Orem City Code Section 22-11-33 sets the development standards that apply to every project built in the PD-21 Zone, the Student Housing Village district along Geneva Road. Among the required elements of the site plan is a lighting plan, and the code does not leave the fixture choice to the developer's discretion. ' It then gets specific: streetlights must have a decorative style and must be dark-sky sensitive, cobra-style light standards (the utility-style fixture common on public roads) are banned outright, light standards must be placed every 50 feet along every private street and pathway in the development, and parking lots and structures must be well lit.

The Planning Commission is the final approving authority for PD-21 site plans, so the lighting plan is reviewed and locked in before construction begins; nothing outside the approved plan may later be added to the development. The requirement traces to Ordinance No. O-00-0046 (enacted 10/24/2000) and has been amended several times since, most recently in 2022, without loosening the dark-sky and no-cobra-fixture language. Nearly identical dark-sky, no-cobra-style clauses appear in the lighting plan sections of several later Planned Development zones in the same chapter (including PD-22 and PD-23), showing this is the City's standard template for streetlighting in newer planned developments rather than a one-off requirement.