Weston, FL Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

Weston addresses light trespass through the shading and screening clause of its parking and site lighting standards. Section 124.52(C)(5) states its purpose directly: minimizing offensiveness to people on neighboring property and eliminating distraction and temporary blinding of drivers passing illuminated property. To meet that goal, all artificial parking lot or site area lighting must be shaded, recessed, or screened so it does not spill over onto adjacent property or public rights-of-way. The numeric cap is specific: spillover measured at the property line cannot exceed one-half footcandle of vertical or horizontal illumination at grade level, and it must fall to zero footcandle, vertical or horizontal, once it reaches ten feet into the neighboring parcel.

Section 124.52(C)(5) further bars pole-mounted or building-mounted fixtures from being pointed toward the perimeter of the lit area, and it prohibits roof-mounted lighting entirely, regardless of shielding. Measurement follows § 124.52(B): footcandles are read with a direct-reading portable low-range light meter accurate to within plus or minus 8% at 1.2 footcandles, certified by an independent commercial photometric laboratory within the year before use, with horizontal readings taken at the roadway surface. As with the rest of § 124.52, a lighting installation cannot go into permanent use until the design engineer certifies in writing under 124.52(C)(7) that it was field-tested and meets these spillover limits, and legacy lighting that spills beyond the cap had 180 days from the section's adoption to be corrected under 124.52(C)(8).