Tazewell County, IL Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

056 opens by stating its restrictions are meant to protect against excessive glare and light spilling over to neighboring properties, and clauses (A) and (B) are the county's direct light-trespass controls. Clause (A) requires that all outdoor lighting for non-residential uses be located, screened, or shielded so that neighboring properties located in residential districts are not illuminated, meaning a commercial or industrial property's lighting design has to keep its light on its own site rather than spilling across the line into a neighbor's yard or windows.

Clause (B) is broader and applies to any outdoor lighting in any district: no fixture may be of such intensity or brilliance that it causes glare or impairs the vision of drivers, covering light trespass onto public roads as well as onto adjoining land. These sit alongside the section's other controls, the 40-foot height cap in clause (C) and the flicker ban in clause (F), which reduce the chance that a fixture throws light far enough to reach neighboring property in the first place. Because clause (A) is written to non-residential uses specifically, a homeowner's own yard or security lighting is governed instead by the general no-glare rule in clause (B), which still bars any lighting bright enough to bother drivers or, by the section's stated purpose, spill onto a neighbor's land.