Ashwaubenon, WI Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

Section 17-6-300(C)(1)(a) sets Ashwaubenon's numeric light-trespass ceiling for outdoor lighting fixtures installed on commercial property that does not abut residential property, plus industrial and agricultural property: the maximum allowable light trespass is 0.2 horizontal footcandles measured at a residential property and 0.5 horizontal footcandles at any other property, both taken at a height of four feet above the ground. The ordinance is specific about where that reading is taken: at any point on the outer wall of an adjacent building used for residential or public purposes, or at any point more than ten feet from the adjacent lot line, whichever standard applies to the property being measured. Ambient or natural light is excluded from the measurement entirely, so only the offending fixture's own contribution counts against the cap.

This numeric standard sits alongside the more general shielding duty in § 17-6-300(C)(1)(b), which requires fixtures to avoid any direct line of sight to the source above five feet of height on neighboring land, but the 0.2/0.5 footcandle figures are the hard ceiling a property can be measured against regardless of how the fixture is shielded. Section 17-6-300(C)(2) makes the light-trespass rule effective immediately for residential properties and for commercial property abutting residential property, with other commercial, industrial and agricultural lighting brought into compliance once modifications reach 50 percent of the existing fixtures. Enforcement runs through the inspector defined in § 17-6-300(B) as the Village's building inspector/zoning administrator.