Freehold Township, NJ Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

M of the Land Use chapter governs parking lot lighting in every multiple-family residential zone in Freehold Township, including the garden apartment, townhouse and PUD zones scattered through Article XIII. The section requires parking areas and access drives to be adequately illuminated during the hours between sunset and sunrise when the use is in operation, but immediately couples that mandate with a shielding requirement: the illumination must be adequately shielded to protect any residential properties from glare generated from the illumination. In practice this means fixtures must be shielded so light is directed downward onto the pavement rather than sideways across a property line into a neighbor's windows or yard.

The requirement is enforced as part of the site plan review the Planning Board conducts under Article VI before any multifamily development is built or expanded, and afterward by the Zoning Officer under Section 190-249, who inspects properties and can order the owner in writing to remedy a violation. E covering property-line glare from illuminated signage, are the Township's two operative anti-glare provisions. Outside multifamily parking lots and illuminated signs, a resident's complaint about a neighbor's floodlight is handled case by case as a nuisance matter rather than under a numeric footcandle limit.

Because the lighting duty is written into the zoning code, a property that fails to shield its parking lot lighting is a zoning violation, prosecuted the same way any other Chapter 190 violation is prosecuted.