Brentwood, CA Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

Brentwood Municipal Code § 17.200.004, the "Performance standards" section of Chapter 17.200 (Office and Commercial Zones, General Regulations), folds light trespass into the same paragraph as heat and humidity nuisances. Subsection B.2 requires that any operation producing glare be conducted inside a completely enclosed building, and it sets a hard numeric ceiling: light on the lot shall not cause illumination in excess of one-half foot-candle when measured at the lot line. Exposed light sources must be shielded, and any flickering or unusually intense source is separately barred from causing a nuisance across lot lines.

Per § 17.200.002, these performance standards apply to every office and commercial zone in the city, CO, COB, COR, CR, C-1, C-2 and C-3, unless a specific zone's chapter says otherwise, so a car lot on Brentwood Boulevard and a professional office building downtown are held to the identical half-foot-candle line. The same subsection applies matching enclosure rules to intense heat (B.1) and to steam or humidity (B.3), and the surrounding paragraphs of § 17.200.004 require compliance with San Francisco Bay Area Air Pollution Control District rules for smoke and odor, so this section functions as Brentwood's general commercial nuisance-performance chapter, not a stand-alone lighting ordinance.

Because the standard is tied to the zoning code, the community development department enforces it through the same code-enforcement process used for any other zoning violation, and a property found exceeding the half-foot-candle limit at the property line can be required to shield or redirect its fixtures to come back into compliance.