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

The glare standard lives in Division 6 of the ULDC, 'Commercial and Industrial Performance Standards Governing Waste and Emissions,' which opens at Sec. 21-171 by requiring every use in the City to be constructed, maintained and operated so as not to be injurious or offensive to occupants of adjacent premises through noise, vibration, smoke, odor, fumes or glare. Section 21-172 then lists specific performance tests, and subsection (i) covers glare: the emission of glare 'readily perceptible' at any point on the lot line is prohibited outright, with no footcandle number attached, so code staff apply the lot-line test on inspection or after a neighbor complaint rather than a metered threshold.

Section 21-171 separately requires that, within one hundred feet of a residential district, processes and storage be enclosed in completely closed buildings, or screened by a solid wall or fence at least six feet tall when farther away, which limits where an outdoor light source causing glare can even sit near a home. The section also states that where federal, state or other local regulations impose stricter limits than this Code, compliance with the stricter rule is mandatory, so a use cannot rely on the City's language alone if another agency's standard is tighter.

Sec. 21-172 does not carry its own penalty clause, so an unresolved glare violation falls to the general enforcement framework the City uses for the Unified Land Development Code, referenced elsewhere in Chapter 21 as the Code Enforcement Board process under Article VIII of the chapter.