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

506, Lighting and Glare, governs every outdoor fixture in the city: parking lot lights, building-mounted lights, landscape lighting and recreational field lights alike. 04(C) sets four separate height ceilings depending on the zoning district: seventeen feet for outdoor light standards in residential zoning districts, twenty feet in non-residential districts other than industrial ones, twenty-five feet in industrial districts, and a reduced seventeen-foot cap for non-residential fixtures sited within twenty feet of a residential district or use. 04(B) requires every fixture to be directed downward or toward the structure it serves and to be shielded or fully shielded to prevent glare and light pollution to the maximum extent feasible.

506-A translates that mandate into a hard trigger: any Class 1 (color-rendition), Class 2 (general illumination) or Class 3 (decorative) fixture rated at or above 2,000 initial lumens must use a fully shielded housing in every lighting zone citywide, while lower-output fixtures may use unshielded housings except in the lowest-ambient residential zoning districts. Residential lots carry their own 3,000-lumen shielding trigger and a rule that any lamp on a residential lot must be shielded enough that the bulb itself is not visible from an abutting lot.

The chapter also bans new mercury vapor fixtures, laser or searchlight advertising, and requires non-residential outdoor lighting to shut off during daylight hours and whenever the building is unoccupied and the light is not needed for security, enforced through time clocks or photo sensors. Limited exemptions cover holiday lighting from October 30 through February 1, capped at ten watts and seventy lumens per lamp with no flashing on commercial property, solar landscape lights of five watts or less, and a director-approved temporary exemption of up to thirty days.