Rochester, NY Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Chapter 120's Article XX, Requirements Applying to All Districts, applies § 120-170's lighting design standards to every district in Rochester, from R-1 through the O-B and M-1 districts, not just to a single planned development. Under Subsection A, every fixture citywide must be a concealed-source fixture, meaning the bulb or lamp itself can't be visible, with the narrow exception of pedestrian-oriented accent lighting. Pedestrian lights along plazas and walkways are capped at 15 feet and must be designed to match the rest of the site's fixtures.

Security lighting gets extra restrictions: it can't project above a building's roofline or facade, the shields protecting the lamp must be painted to match whatever they're mounted on, and security fixtures can't double as parking-lot or walkway lighting, they're reserved for loading docks, storage yards and similar areas that actually need it. Lighting in a service yard has to stay inside the yard's boundary: no spillover beyond the service area, and the light source itself can't be visible from the street. Wall-mounted floodlights are banned outright on building exteriors, with one narrow carve-out for security lighting inside an enclosed service courtyard.

The Director of Zoning and Permitting reviews lighting plans as part of site plan approval under § 120-192, and Subsection B's guidelines separately encourage soft, indirect building-face lighting ('wall-washing') over glare-producing fixtures and discourage new overhead wiring.