Spotsylvania County, VA Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Article 5, Division 12 of the zoning ordinance opens with a purpose statement, Sec. 1, declaring that the outdoor lighting rules are meant to employ night-sky-friendly principles, reduce light pollution, protect the public welfare by controlling spillover onto adjacent residential properties, and prevent glare or distraction from outdoor luminaires. Sec. 2 applies the division to any outdoor luminaire installed or replaced after the ordinance's September 13, 2016 adoption on commercial, office, industrial or other nonresidential land uses. The operative shielding standard sits in Sec. 4(1): except for the lighting exempted in Sec.

3, every covered luminaire must be a full cutoff or fully shielded fixture, meaning the light source cannot project light or glare above the horizontal plane of the fixture. Compliance is checked before installation using a lighting matrix submitted with a commercial sight-lighting permit application, along with the fixture manufacturer's lamp specifications. The ordinance also bans specific fixture types outright under Sec. 5, including permanently mounted neon, argon, exposed tubing or rope lighting outlining doors or windows visible from outside a nonresidential or mixed-use building, fixtures that imitate traffic-control signals or block a driver's view of one, and unauthorized search lights outside a temporary use or special event permit.

Single-family detached and attached homes are exempt from the full-cutoff requirement under Sec. 3(h), so the shielding mandate is aimed squarely at business, office and industrial properties rather than residential lighting.