Frederick County, VA Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

Part 807 of the Zoning Ordinance (Chapter 165) sets shielding, color-temperature, height and photometric-plan rules for new or replaced outdoor lighting fixtures countywide. Section 165-807.02.B lists six categories exempt from that entire Part, and holiday lighting is one of them: lighting for holiday decorative purposes is exempt outright, alongside routine fixture maintenance, lighting required by federal or state safety agencies, streetlights in a right-of-way, emergency and road-construction lighting, residential or agricultural lighting (unless it triggers the separate use-type standards in § 165-807.05.B), and temporary lighting for civic activities, fairs or carnivals.

Because holiday displays fall under this exemption, a homeowner or business does not need the photometric lighting plan that § 165-807.03 requires for a Site Plan, does not have to meet the full-cutoff, shielding, color-temperature or mounting-height rules of § 165-807.04, and is not bound by the maximum footcandle levels Table VIII-17 and Table VIII-18 set at property lines. The exemption has no stated calendar limit in the text itself: it is tied to purpose, holiday decoration, not a fixed number of days, unlike the county's separate 30-day, twice-a-year cap on temporary signs.

The exemption sits inside the same Part 807 that otherwise bans flashing, revolving or intermittent exterior lighting visible from a property line or street under § 165-807.04.B, so a display using strobe-style commercial advertising lighting rather than ordinary holiday decoration could fall outside the exemption's intended scope.