Pitt County, NC Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

Pitt County Zoning Ordinance Section 8(B) sets general standards that apply to every use requiring development-standards review, meaning any use marked 'D', 'S', or 'CD' in the Table 5-1 Table of Permitted Uses. Subsection 3, Outdoor Lighting, requires a lighting plan submitted to the Pitt County Planning Department as part of site plan approval. Detached fixtures must be mounted on a pole of metal, fiberglass, wood or concrete, and every fixture must be full cutoff: the housing cannot let light disperse or glare shine above a 90-degree horizontal plane measured from the fixture's base.

The maximum height for a detached light source is 20 feet, though an applicant pursuing conditional rezoning can seek approval for poles up to 35 feet. Fixtures may not sit close enough to residentially zoned land to spill light onto it, and installations must be functionally and architecturally integrated with the site and building design. Eight categories are exempt, including right-of-way roadway lighting, lighting separately exempted by state or federal law, FAA-mandated tower lighting, flag lighting, low-voltage landscape lighting, and temporary construction, emergency, or holiday lighting on residential property.

Because the rule sits in Section 8's general use standards rather than the base residential district rules, it binds commercial, institutional, and conditional or special-use development in the county's zoning jurisdiction but does not separately restrict an ordinary single-family homeowner's porch light. A nearly identical full-cutoff requirement, Section 4(D)(5), applies again to development inside the Highway Corridor Overlay District.