Gulfport, MS Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

Appendix D's Ambient Standards, Section 5.3.9(c) for the T3 Sub-Urban zone, controls light spilling onto adjoining property through mounting height rather than a lumens-at-the-line test. A luminaire attached directly to a building facade is capped at 12 feet, measured from its topmost point. A pole-mounted or otherwise freestanding fixture is capped at the lesser of one-third the distance from the luminaire to any property line, or 25 feet, adjustable by Warrant; that formula means a light placed close to a boundary must be mounted correspondingly lower, directly limiting how far its glare can travel onto the neighboring lot.

The denser T4, T5 and T6 zones raise the freestanding cap to 32.5 and 37.5 feet respectively while keeping the same one-third-of-distance formula, reflecting taller buildings and wider setbacks in those cores. Article 7 backs this with the Fully Shielded Luminaire definition, a fixture that directs no light above a horizontal plane through its topmost point, and the Nearly Fully Shielded Luminaire definition for fixtures that meet that standard until a lens or diffuser is added, both of which the shielding rules in Section 5.3.9(b) and (d) rely on to keep light directed down and away from adjacent lots.

As with the rest of the SmartCode, these mounting-height limits govern only land within an elected SmartCode Community Planning Area rather than the city as a whole.