Boca Raton, FL Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

Section 23-241(3) requires that all outdoor lighting fixtures in the city, including those serving off-street parking lots, be installed so that the source of each individual light is shaded, positioned, and maintained so it is not visible off the premises where it is installed. Subsection (4) adds a numeric ceiling: any outdoor fixture lighting a parcel adjacent to a residentially zoned parcel, whether the properties actually touch or not, may emit no more than 1 footcandle of light measured at the adjacent residential property line, using a standard light meter with its cell aimed toward the light source.

That footcandle cap applies regardless of the light-emitting property's own zoning, so a commercial parking lot or nonresidential development next to a residential neighborhood must meet the same 1-footcandle ceiling at the shared line. The two shielding and footcandle standards do not apply to streetlights or lighting for governmental facilities, which are carved out under subsection (5). The section sits within the city's development regulations governing indoor and outdoor lighting citywide, alongside the separate high-pressure sodium vapor fixture-type mandate for public streets and parking areas in subsection (1), so a property owner installing new exterior lighting has to satisfy both the fixture-type rule where it applies and the shielding/footcandle limit wherever the lighting sits next to residential land.