Scottsdale Outdoor Lighting Rules: A Homeowner’s Guide to the Dark-Sky Code and ESL Overlay

Scottsdale is one of the most lighting-conscious cities in Arizona. The city’s zoning ordinance limits how bright outdoor fixtures can be, which way they point, how late they stay on, and how much light can cross a property line. In the Environmentally Sensitive Lands (ESL) overlay that covers the desert and mountain areas of north Scottsdale, the rules are stricter still.

This guide explains the rules that apply to homeowners, HOAs, and commercial properties today, in plain language, with the section numbers so you can check them yourself. It replaces three older North Star articles written in 2015. Several rules quoted in those articles, including the old wattage limits, were repealed in 2014.

North Star Outdoor Lighting designs and installs landscape and security lighting across Scottsdale, including many homes inside the ESL overlay. A compliant design is part of every plan we draw.

This guide summarizes the City of Scottsdale Zoning Ordinance as published in October 2026. It is not legal advice. Your HOA may set stricter rules, and the city’s Planning and Development Services staff make the final call on any project.

Scottsdale Outdoor Lighting Rules at a Glance

Rule	Single-family homes	Where it comes from
Light crossing into a neighbor’s yard	0.1 footcandles maximum, measured at the property line 6 feet above grade	Sec. 7.602, Table 7.602.A.1
Lighting curfew	Any fixture of 2,600 initial lumens or more must be off from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. Security lighting may run up to 15 minutes at a time.	Sec. 7.602, Table 7.602.A.1
Shielding	Required on any fixture over 1,600 lumens	Sec. 7.602, Table 7.602.A.2
Full cutoff and aimed down	Required on any fixture over 3,050 lumens, and anything mounted 8 feet or higher must point down	Sec. 7.602, Table 7.602.A.2
ESL overlay (north Scottsdale)	Fixtures below 3 feet fully shielded; fixtures above 3 feet full cutoff and aimed down; fixtures generally no taller than 6 feet; no landscape lighting in Natural Area Open Space	Sec. 6.1070.G.1.f
Design review	Not required for lighting on a detached single-family home. Required for commercial, multifamily, and HOA common-area lighting.	Sec. 7.601

Who Has to Follow Scottsdale’s Outdoor Lighting Code?

Section 7.600 of the Scottsdale Zoning Ordinance applies to all outdoor lighting in the city except lighting installed before July 5, 1983. The city states its purpose plainly: to minimize light pollution, reduce glare, conserve energy, protect Scottsdale’s character, and limit lighting that interferes with astronomical observation.

That means the rules cover your landscape lights, wall sconces, path lights, security lights, and patio lighting, whether they were installed by a contractor or picked up at a home store.

Single-family homes skip design review

Lighting on the outside of a detached single-family home and its accessory buildings does not need Development Review Board (DRB) approval. The standards still apply. They are enforced through plan review on new construction and through code enforcement when a neighbor complains.

Commercial, multifamily, and HOA lighting needs DRB approval

All other outdoor lighting, including HOA entry monuments, common-area paths, parking lots, and commercial buildings, goes through the Development Review Board. The section on commercial and HOA projects below covers what the city expects in that submittal.

Nonstandard lighting needs a use permit

Lighting that doesn’t meet the ordinance can still be approved, but only through a use permit (Sec. 7.603). That is a slow, public process, so it is almost always easier to design within the standards.

Citywide Rules for Single-Family Homes

These rules apply everywhere in Scottsdale, inside or outside the ESL overlay.

Light trespass: 0.1 footcandles at the property line

Where a single-family home sits next to another single-family home, light crossing the property line can’t exceed 0.1 footcandles. It is measured at the property line, 6 feet above grade, with the meter facing back toward the property that has the light.

For comparison, full moonlight measures around 0.01 to 0.03 footcandles, so 0.1 is still a very low level. In practice, a fixture aimed at a neighbor’s wall or a bright flood near a side yard will fail this test easily. Well-placed, shielded landscape lighting passes it.

Brightness tiers decide what a fixture needs

The ordinance sorts fixtures by the total initial lumens of all the bulbs or LEDs inside them (Table 7.602.A.2). In single-family districts:

Fixture output	Shield	Aimed downward	Full cutoff
1,600 lumens or less	Not required	Not required, unless mounted 8 feet or higher	Not required
Over 1,600 to 3,050 lumens	Required	Not required, unless mounted 8 feet or higher	Not required
Over 3,050 lumens	Required	Required	Required

Most professional landscape lighting fixtures run well under 1,600 lumens, so uplighting a tree or a wall is allowed outside the ESL overlay. The ordinance asks that uplighting be placed on the east or west side of the object being lit wherever practicable, so less light spills toward the street or the neighbors.

The 11 p.m. curfew

Any fixture producing 2,600 initial lumens or more must be off between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. when the home is next to other single-family homes. The one exception is security lighting, which may come on for up to 15 minutes at a time. In practice that means motion-activated floods are fine, but a bright flood left on all night is not.

Lower-output landscape and path lighting is not covered by the curfew. A timer or a smart control system still makes sense: it keeps your lights on a schedule and makes it easy to dim the whole yard late at night.

Lit sport courts have their own limits

Lights for a residential sport court or other recreation area must be shielded so the light source can’t be seen from neighboring properties. Any light aimed toward a side or rear property line must be set back at least 20 feet. Court lights must be off from 10:00 p.m. until sunrise (Sec. 7.200.G.1).

Extra Rules Inside the ESL Overlay

The Environmentally Sensitive Lands Ordinance, adopted in 1991, governs development across the desert and mountain areas of Scottsdale north and east of the Central Arizona Project canal. That is roughly two-thirds of the city, including most of north Scottsdale and the land around the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

What the ESL lighting rule says

Section 6.1070.G.1.f sets the lighting standard for the overlay:

• Fixtures below 3 feet must be fully shielded.
• Fixtures above 3 feet must be horizontal full-cutoff fixtures aimed downward. Lights used for security purposes are the exception.
• Lighting should be low scale and directed downward, recessed, or shielded so the light source can’t be seen from nearby homes or from a public viewpoint, such as a street, park, school, or trail.
• Fixture height should generally not exceed 6 feet from the nearest grade to the top of the fixture. Inspection or code enforcement staff can require lower.

The city’s plan-review checklist for ESL homes adds one more: no landscape lighting is allowed in Natural Area Open Space (NAOS), the portion of every ESL lot that is permanently preserved as natural desert.

What that means for your design

The ESL rule is about the source of the light, not just its direction. A fixture can aim at a saguaro and still comply if the lamp is hidden inside a well, a shroud, or a louver, so no one off your property sees a bright point of light. In our experience, these choices pass:

• In-ground well lights with honeycomb louvers or glare guards
• Path and bollard lights with solid, opaque caps that send light only down
• Recessed soffit lights and downward-only wall sconces
• Directional fixtures with deep shrouds, set where the lamp is screened from view

These usually do not:

• Open-bulb fixtures and exposed string lights in view of the street or neighbors
• Fixtures with clear or nearly clear glass faces
• Unshielded floodlights, other than motion-activated security lights
• Uplights in NAOS, or tall pole lights above 6 feet

The old wattage rules no longer apply

You may still find older guides, including the 2015 articles this page replaces, that list ESL wattage caps such as 50 watts for incandescent or 1 watt for LED. Those limits came from a 2007 zoning interpretation that the City Council revoked in 2014 (case 4-TA-2014), when the lighting standards above were written into the ordinance itself. Shielding, fixture height, and source visibility are what count now, not wattage.

Commercial and HOA Lighting Projects

Lighting for businesses, multifamily buildings, and HOA common areas goes through the Development Review Board, and the city’s Policy for Exterior and Site Lighting (revised January 2019) sets out what the board expects.

Design principles the DRB applies

• Use full cutoff fixtures, careful mounting heights, and shielding to control glare and light trespass.
• Consider separate pre-curfew and post-curfew lighting levels with automatic controls.
• Use architectural lighting only at the pedestrian scale and on special features. Avoid lighting broad wall planes, towers, or roofs.
• Use landscape lighting only to accent plants, aim it away from property lines, and fit extension shields. In the ESL overlay, landscape lighting must be shielded and aimed downward.

Recommended light levels by area

The city groups areas into four ambient lighting zones, from intrinsically dark (E-1) to urban (E-4), and recommends these levels, based on IESNA standards:

Ambient lighting zone	Average on the ground	Maximum on the ground	Maximum at the property line
E-1, intrinsically dark areas	1 fc	4 fc	0.1 fc
E-2, estate and rural areas	1.5 fc	6 fc	0.3 fc
E-3, suburban areas	2 fc	8 fc	0.8 fc
E-4, urban and pedestrian areas	2.5 fc	10 fc	1.5 fc

The ordinance itself caps light trespass at 0.3 footcandles where a commercial or multifamily property borders single-family homes. The zone map in the city’s Design Standards and Policies Manual is a guide, and the DRB makes the final zone determination.

What the DRB submittal includes

A commercial or HOA lighting submittal needs manufacturer cut sheets for every fixture, with photometric data and the candela distribution curve. It also needs at least two photometric studies: a point-by-point horizontal illuminance plan across the whole site, on a grid no wider than 10 feet, and a vertical light trespass plan along the full property line. The plans must show maximum, minimum, and average readings, a light loss factor no lower than 0.70, and a fixture schedule listing lumens, color temperature, and mounting height.

North Star prepares lighting plans for HOAs and commercial properties and can coordinate with your architect or management company on the submittal.

Color Temperature and HOA Rules

Scottsdale’s zoning ordinance does not set a citywide color temperature limit for homes. That doesn’t mean anything goes:

• Many north Scottsdale HOAs set their own limits, such as requiring warm white bulbs in the 2,000K to 3,000K range or capping lumens per fixture. Check your CC&Rs and design guidelines before you buy fixtures.
• The DRB routinely asks for color temperature on commercial lighting plans, and project approvals often set a limit.
• Warm white light around 2,700K to 3,000K is the dark-sky standard. It also looks better against stone, stucco, and desert plants than cool white or blue-tinted LEDs.

We specify warm white LEDs on nearly every Scottsdale project for those reasons.

How North Star Designs Compliant Lighting

Compliance and good design point the same way. Shielded, low-glare, warm white lighting looks better than bright, exposed fixtures, and it lets you see the desert and the stars from your patio. Our process:

1. Site review. We confirm whether your property is inside the ESL overlay, where any NAOS boundaries sit, and what your HOA requires.
2. Lighting design. We choose fixture types, lumen levels, and placements that stay under the trespass and visibility limits while lighting the features you care about.
3. Controls. We set timers and zones so higher-output lights follow the curfew automatically.
4. Installation and aiming. We install, aim, and check the system at night, adjusting shields and angles so no lamp is visible from the street or the neighbors.

Whether you are lighting a new ESL home, updating an older system that predates the current rules, or answering a code enforcement letter, contact North Star Outdoor Lighting for a design consultation. You can also learn more about our residential lighting, commercial lighting, and HOA lighting management services.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Scottsdale Zoning Ordinance, Sec. 7.600 Outdoor Lighting (Ord. No. 4163, August 25, 2014)
• City of Scottsdale, Single-Family Plan Requirements, ESL Zoning (quotes Sec. 6.1070.G.1.f)
• City of Scottsdale, Exterior and Site Lighting design guidelines and City Policy for Exterior and Site Lighting (revised January 11, 2019)
• City of Scottsdale, Zoning Ordinance Interpretations (ESL exterior lighting interpretation, revoked by case 4-TA-2014)