Dallas, TX Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

Sec. 104(a) reads that a person shall not conduct a use that has a visible source of illumination producing glare or direct illumination across a property line of an intensity that creates a nuisance or detracts from the use or enjoyment of adjacent property. Unlike the noise standards in the same article, which set decibel tables by zoning district under Sec. 102, the glare standard is a nuisance test: the city does not publish a footcandle ceiling for spillover light, so a violation turns on whether the illumination is intense enough to be a nuisance or to detract from a neighbor's use and enjoyment of their property.

The companion requirement in Sec. 104(b), covered on its own page, adds a design fix, light source and reflector combined so the beam is controlled and not aimed across the line, but subsection (a) is the operative prohibition a code enforcement officer or a neighbor's complaint invokes first. Sec. 106) standards in Article VI of the Dallas Development Code, all treated as environmental performance standards that apply to a use regardless of the zoning district it sits in. Sec. 107 gives an existing use some cover if its lighting predates the standard: it may continue, but only if it does not enlarge or remodel in a way that worsens the noncompliance.