Tuscaloosa, AL Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

The City of Tuscaloosa does not currently have a dedicated dark-sky lighting ordinance with foot-candle caps, full-cutoff fixture mandates, or color-temperature limits. In the adopted Zoning Ordinance (Chapter 24), exterior lighting is addressed mainly as a design expectation: fixtures must be designed and oriented so as not to direct glare or excessive illumination onto adjacent properties, streets, or sidewalks. There is no citywide curfew on lighting and no general requirement that all fixtures be fully shielded. The city's pending "Framework" zoning rewrite proposes a much more detailed exterior-lighting standard (a new Sec. 24-6.6, Exterior Lighting Standards) that would add shielding, height, and spillover rules, but that draft has not been adopted and is not enforceable. Alabama also has no statewide dark-sky statute imposing these controls on Tuscaloosa, so the matter is left to the city. Practically, this means most residential outdoor lighting is allowed as long as it does not throw glare or excessive light onto neighbors or the street; specific large developments may face additional lighting conditions through site-plan review. Property owners with a neighbor-lighting concern should look to the glare/light-trespass principle and to the city's nuisance authority rather than to a numeric lighting code.