Grays Harbor County, WA Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

Grays Harbor County's zoning title doesn't set foot-candle, lumen or shielding specifications for outdoor lighting outside city limits. Instead, § 17.68.080, in the off-street parking and loading chapter, folds a light-trespass standard into the improvement requirements that apply once a project's on-site parking facility serves five or more vehicles; single-family and two-family dwellings and short-term rentals are exempt from these improvement standards altogether. The same subsection requires the lot to be paved, graded and drained to the satisfaction of the county engineer, kept free of weeds, trash and debris, and requires the planning director to approve the location and design of all entrances and exits.

Subsection C then states the light-trespass rule directly: any lighting used to illuminate the parking facility must be arranged to reflect light away from adjoining residential premises. Because the code gives no numeric ceiling, compliance is a design judgment applied by the planning director when the parking layout is submitted for approval under § 17.68.090, before any building or grading permit for the lot is issued. The rule sits inside Title 17 (Zoning), so it travels with every zoning district that allows the use generating the parking, from a C-2 general commercial lot to an I-2 industrial site.

A similar, narrower rule appears at § 17.60.040(B) for churches, clubs and semi-public buildings, requiring that artificial lighting of on-site parking be oriented away from adjacent residential properties, showing the county applies the same away-from-residences principle wherever it addresses site lighting at all.