Allegany County, MD Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

Allegany County's Chapter 360 Land Development Part 4 Zoning devotes § 360-137, Lighting, signs and billboards, to lighting alongside sign standards, and Subsection F sets the county's only outdoor lighting rule: fixtures must be shielded and aimed inward at the parcel they serve, not left to spill glare onto a neighbor's yard or into the eyes of drivers on the road. The rule sits in Part 4, so it reaches every zoned use, commercial, industrial or residential, that installs exterior lighting, from parking-lot fixtures to sign illumination and security floodlights.

Land Development Services (Community Services) reviews lighting as part of site plan and sign permit review before a certificate of occupancy issues; there is no separate lighting permit or footcandle table in the chapter, so compliance turns on the shielded-and-focused standard itself. The same section bans flashing lighted signs outright (Subsection E) and, for electronic variable message signs, requires each static display to hold for at least eight seconds with transitions capped at two seconds (Subsection K), so a business that under-shields a sign or lets a display flash faster than the code allows risks a Land Development Services stop-work order tied to the same § 360-137 review.

Because § 360-137F applies countywide in the zoned areas rather than to one district, the shielding duty attaches whether the light sits in an A, R, C or I district, and it applies independently of whatever height or setback standard governs the fixture's supporting structure under §§ 360-126 and 360-128.