Waukesha, WI Outdoor Lighting: Dark Sky Rules (2026)

59(10), Lighting, one of the Performance Standards that apply citywide, opens with a general rule that no exterior lighting used for a parking lot, recreational facility, product display, or security purpose may interfere with vehicle operation or land uses nearby; only lighting placed in a public right-of-way for safety is exempt. To keep that promise, the section lets the City require shielded luminaries, fixtures with cutoff optics, or careful placement, which is the code's control on glare and light trespass. It then sets two numeric benchmarks.

4 footcandles under an approved site plan, though agricultural and single-family residential properties are exempt from that minimum. 5 footcandles, a citywide ceiling on how much light a property may cast toward its neighbors; the reader-board and electronic sign rules elsewhere in Chapter 22 point to this same lighting-intensity standard as their illumination ceiling. The section also bars light fixtures inside any required buffer yard and separately forbids lighting that becomes a public nuisance regardless of whether it otherwise meets the footcandle numbers. Low-voltage accent lighting of 12 volts or less is exempt from these requirements, and fixtures approved before the chapter's adoption are treated as legal nonconforming lighting rather than forced into immediate compliance.