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

Vision Park is one of Shenandoah's thirteen planned development districts, adopted by Ordinance No. O-02-015 and amended by Ordinance No. O-04-012, and its own development standards, not the city's general zoning code, govern site lighting there. 01(a)(16) requires lighting for vehicles, pedestrians, signage, architecture and site features, but caps fixtures used in surface parking, driveways and service areas at 33 feet including the pole and any concrete base, and requires a consistent, uniform fixture design across the development. The pattern of light pooling from each fixture must be engineered for smooth, even coverage of driveways and parking surfaces while eliminating undesirable glare or light intrusion into the adjacent building site, the standard's own language for what this page calls light trespass.

Illumination levels are numeric, not aspirational: parking areas need a minimum of two footcandles and a maintained average of one footcandle, with no point on the surface falling below one-half footcandle initial or three-tenths footcandle maintained. Only metal-halide light sources are allowed, and yellow or orange source lights are banned outright. Parking-structure deck lighting is capped lower still, at 18 feet, must match the surface-lot fixture style, and light from lower parking levels may not be visible from public streets. Exterior lighting plans require review and approval by the Vision Park Architectural Control Committee (VPACC) before installation, on top of whatever the city's own building permit process requires; a multifamily exception lets VPACC approve a project-specific lighting design with its own consultant instead of the standard footcandle table.