Effingham County, GA Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

Two provisions of the Zoning Ordinance work together to control light trespass onto neighboring homes in unincorporated Effingham County. Section 3.33.6, part of the performance standards article applicable to nonresidential uses, prohibits direct glare visible from any residential district caused by unshielded floodlights or other sources of high intensity lighting; the standard is written from the perspective of what a resident can see, not just what a fixture emits, so an unshielded floodlight that throws visible glare across a property line into a residential district violates the section regardless of where on the source parcel it sits.

Section 3.30.5.3 applies the same underlying concern specifically to off-street parking lots: where a nonresidential use provides lighting for its parking area, that lighting must be designed and installed to reflect the light away from any contiguous residentially zoned property, rather than toward it. Neither section sets a numeric footcandle limit or a specific shielding technology; both are phrased as performance standards that Development Services and the zoning administrator apply case by case when reviewing a site plan or investigating a complaint. Because § 3.33.6 sits in the performance standards article that applies to all nonresidential uses countywide, it reaches commercial, industrial, and institutional lighting broadly, while § 3.30.5.3 is the narrower parking-lot-specific version of the same rule.