Barrow County, GA Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Sec. 89-791(d)(9) sets the illumination standard for billboards permitted along the Georgia Highway 316 corridor under the rest of Sec. 89-791. Rather than a numeric brightness cap like the one the code applies to electronic changeable copy signs under Sec. 89-787, this provision uses a nuisance-and-safety standard written in three parts. First, light from an illuminated billboard cannot be of an intensity or brightness that interferes with the peace, comfort, convenience or general welfare of residents or occupants of adjacent properties, which gives the planning and community development director room to act against a sign a neighbor complains is too bright even without a foot-candle reading.

Second, no colored lights on a billboard can be used at any location or in any manner so that they could be confused with, or construed as, traffic control devices, keeping a lit sign from mimicking a red, green or yellow signal near an intersection. Third, neither direct light from the sign's own light sources nor light reflected from them can create a hazard to motor vehicle operators, a standard that reaches glare problems as well as color confusion. Because a billboard is, by definition under Sec.

89-791(a), a large freestanding sign exceeding ordinary sign-area limits, this illumination standard applies on top of the size, spacing and highway-frontage rules that already govern where a billboard can be built and lit along GA 316.