Salinas, CA Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Sec. 37-50.480, Outdoor lighting, opens by stating the standard applies "to all on-site outdoor lighting" in every zoning district, not merely the design-review language sprinkled through individual district chapters that only "encourages" alternative-fuel amenities. Subdivision (a) is the operative dark-sky rule: outdoor lighting must employ cutoff optics that allow no light to be emitted above a horizontal plane running through the bottom of the fixture, the same cutoff-fixture concept used in dark-sky ordinances elsewhere. Parking lots are capped at an average maintained illumination of 2.4 footcandles at ground level, with uniform lighting levels required rather than hot spots, and every building-mounted or freestanding parking-lot fixture, including its base and pole, is capped at 25 feet in height in all districts, rising to 40 feet only in the IG (industrial-general) district.

Two commercial uses get their own numeric overlays instead of the general parking-lot figures. Vehicle display areas in the IGC district may use a light source up to 25 feet tall, but ground-level illumination during operating hours is capped at 15 footcandles, dropping to 5 footcandles between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. Auto service-station canopy lighting, mounted on the underside of the canopy, is capped at an average maintained 20 footcandles (30 maximum), and fixtures must be recessed so no light shows below the canopy's bottom plane.

Before a building permit issues, the applicant must submit a point-to-point lighting plan showing horizontal illuminance in footcandles that demonstrates compliance with the whole section, so shielding and footcandle limits are checked at plan-check. Property in the Airport Overlay District or the focused growth, central city, mixed use, and new urbanism overlay districts is layered with additional lighting standards from those overlay chapters on top of Sec. 37-50.480.