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

Division 12 of the zoning ordinance's Article 5 (Sec. 5) regulates outdoor luminaires installed on commercial, office, industrial and other nonresidential land uses, aiming, in the code's own words, to employ night-sky-friendly principles and control light spillover onto adjacent residential property. Sec. 3 lists eight categories of lighting exempt from those standards, and holiday decorative lighting is one of them, grouped alongside construction, agricultural, special-event and emergency lighting: all must be temporary and discontinued within seven days of finishing the project or holiday for which they were installed.

Because Sec. 3(h) already exempts single-family detached and attached dwellings outright (apart from their street lights, community centers or clubhouses), the seven-day clock chiefly affects seasonal lighting at businesses, offices, shopping centers and other nonresidential sites, plus any residential common-area lighting tied to a community center or clubhouse. Lighting that a nonresidential property keeps up past the seven-day window loses its exemption and must comply with the general outdoor lighting rules in Sec. 5 footcandles measured at the property line, and cannot directly illuminate an adjacent residential lot or road.

A sight lighting permit application to the zoning office, backed by a lighting matrix and manufacturer specifications, is how compliance is documented before a nonresidential luminaire is installed.