Site Lighting and Photometric Plans
Photometric Plans and Studies in Southwest Florida
Your site plan went in, the review comments came back, and one of them asks for a photometric plan. It is a common comment, and it usually arrives late, after the civil, the drainage, and the landscaping are all settled.
A photometric plan, also called a photometric study, is a drawing that proves your lighting works before anything gets installed. We produce them in house as part of our site work in Charlotte, Sarasota, Lee, Collier, DeSoto, Hendry, Manatee, and Hillsborough counties, and we take standalone photometric plans case by case.
If your parcel is on or near the coast, there is a second layer: the same plan may have to satisfy a sea turtle lighting ordinance, which asks for close to the opposite of what a standard parking lot lighting design wants. That is further down the page, and it is the part a firm outside this region cannot help you with.
What Is a Photometric Plan?
A photometric plan is a scaled site drawing showing calculated light levels across the property in foot-candles, demonstrating that the proposed lighting meets the jurisdiction’s minimum levels where they are required and stays under its limits at the property line.
A foot-candle is the unit those levels are measured in. Roughly, it is the amount of light from one candle at a distance of one foot. It is the number every lighting comment on your review letter is written in, and almost nobody explains it.
Here is what goes into one:
- The site plan base. The parcel, the building footprint, the drive aisles, the parking, and the property lines, at a real scale.
- The fixture schedule. Which luminaire goes where, at what mounting height, aimed which way, with what shielding.
- Manufacturer photometric data. Every fixture has an IES file from its maker describing how it actually throws light. The calculation is only as good as those files.
- The calculation grid. A grid of points across the site where light levels get computed, not a general impression of brightness.
- Property line readings. The values along every boundary, which is where most of the scrutiny lands.
- Uniformity ratios. Average light compared to minimum light, because a lot with bright pools and dark gaps can average out fine and still fail.
What we need from you to start: the site plan or survey, CAD preferred, the jurisdiction and the review letter itself, your property lines and what is next door, and any fixtures already selected. That last one is helpful, not required.
A fixture catalog is not a photometric plan. The engineering is getting enough light where it is required and effectively none of it past your property line, at the same time.
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When a Jurisdiction Asks for One
The comment usually shows up in one of these situations:
- New commercial construction with any parking area.
- Adding or expanding parking on a site that is already built.
- Site plan amendments where lighting is part of what changed.
- A light trespass complaint from a neighbor or from code enforcement, about light spilling onto adjacent property.
- Coastal parcels where a sea turtle lighting ordinance applies.
Which department sends the comment varies by county, and so does the standard being applied. Our county-by-county building department directory is where to start if you are not sure who is reviewing your project.
The Two Numbers That Fail a Plan
Most rejected plans fail on one of two things, and the two pull against each other.
Not enough light where light is required. Drive aisles, parking areas, and walkways carry minimum levels, and the uniformity ratio has to hold across them. This is the half people expect.
Too much light at the property line. This is the half that surprises people, and it is where we design to a specific target. We treat the property line as the zero point: robust light on your property, and effectively zero at the line, so the neighbor is not oversaturated. Ambient spill is real and it is measurable. A reviewer or a neighbor can stand at that line with a meter.
Getting both right at once is the actual engineering. Raising a pole or widening a beam to fill a dark corner can put light over the line thirty feet away, so the answer is a calculation across the whole site rather than a brighter fixture. We also design knowing that what gets installed in the field may vary from what is drawn.
Coastal Projects and Sea Turtle Lighting
On the coast, standard commercial lighting practice and wildlife lighting requirements point in opposite directions, and both have to be satisfied on the same plan.
Sea turtle ordinances generally call for long-wavelength light, amber or red rather than white, with fixtures shielded and mounted low so the source is not visible from the beach. A typical parking lot design wants the opposite: high mounting, broad distribution, cooler color temperature. Nesting season runs May 1 through October 31 in most Florida coastal counties, and the requirements are administered by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, with coastal construction permitting handled separately by FDEP.
Charlotte, Sarasota, Lee, and Collier counties all have lighting ordinances of this kind in their coastal areas, and our guide to sea turtle lighting restrictions in Florida walks through what they require. The practical answer is usually available: LED color options are wide now, and amber is already preferred for roadway lighting in a lot of applications, so a compliant fixture is not the obstacle it would have been ten years ago. The obstacle is designing the layout so a shielded, low-mounted, amber fixture still delivers the minimum levels the county wants in the drive aisle.
For the wider picture on coastal parcels, our piece on building on Florida barrier islands covers how these overlapping rules tend to arrive together.
Zonas en las que prestamos servicio
Tenemos nuestra sede en la ciudad de Port Charlotte prestamos servicio en toda la zona del suroeste de Florida, especialmente en los siguientes condados:
- Charlotte County – Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda, Deep Creek, Rotonda West, Cleveland, Burnt Store, Charlotte Harbor, etc.
- Collier County – Naples, Everglades City, Naples Manor, Goodland, etc.
- DeSoto County – Arcadia, Ft. Ogden, Nocatee, etc.
- Glades County – Moore Haven, Buckhead Ridge, Palmdale, Lakeport, Ortona, etc.
- Hardee County – Wauchula, Bowling Green, Zolfo Springs, Ona, Limestone, etc.
- Hendry County – LaBelle, Harlem, Clewiston, Montura, etc.
- Highlands County – Sebring, Avon Park, Lake Placid, Lorida, Venus, etc.
- Hillsborough County – Tampa, Ruskin, Plant City, etc.
- Lee County – Bonita Springs, Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Estero, etc.
- Manatee County – Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, Bayshore Gardens, Palmetto, etc.
- Sarasota County – North Port, Venice, Sarasota, Englewood, Nokomis, etc.
We Specify the Fixtures
We specify the mounting height, the fixture model, the setting, the shielding, and the aim direction. You do not need to have picked fixtures before you call us, and you do not need to send us cut sheets to get started.
Installing to that specification is the contractor’s responsibility, and it is worth being direct about what happens when they do not. An inspector will notice a floodlight aimed at the neighbor’s bedroom window. An inspector will generally not notice a fixture mounted three feet lower than specified, or a downlight installed without its shield. Both of those change the light distribution the plan was approved on, and both tend to come back as a complaint a year later rather than at inspection.
The plan exists so the contractor knows exactly what to install and exactly where. Photometric work sits inside our commercial site work, alongside the site plan, grading and drainage, and utility design, which is where most of these requests reach us. Lighting terms and the rest of the vocabulary on your review letter are in our Southwest Florida developer engineering glossary.
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Let's Talk About Your Photometric Plan
Send us the review letter and the site plan and we will tell you what the lighting section is actually asking for. If all you have is an address and a comment you do not understand, that is a normal place to start.
Site Lighting and Photometric Plans
Preguntas frecuentes
A scaled drawing of your site showing calculated light levels in foot-candles across the property, used to demonstrate to a reviewer that the proposed lighting meets the minimum levels required on the site and stays within limits at the property line.
The same thing. Reviewers, architects, and contractors use both words for the same deliverable, so if your comment letter says “study” and a proposal says “plan,” nothing is different.
If you are building or expanding commercial parking, usually yes, and your review comments will say so. If nothing about your site is changing and no permit is open, generally no.
The unit light level is measured in. Roughly the light from one candle at a distance of one foot. Minimum and maximum lighting requirements in a land development code are written in foot-candles.
It depends on the site and whether it is part of a larger site work package. Send us the plan and the comments and we will scope it.
It depends on the site and what else is in the queue. Ask us when you send the review letter and we will give you a real answer for your project.
Usually not on its own. Owners replace fixtures as they fail and that is generally treated as maintenance. If you are already in for a permit on something else at the site, the lighting can come into scope with it.
In coastal areas with a sea turtle lighting ordinance, fixtures generally need to be long wavelength, shielded, and mounted low enough that the source is not visible from the beach, with nesting season running May 1 through October 31 in most counties. The specific requirement is local, so the ordinance for your parcel governs.