Corona, CA Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Corona addresses billboard illumination by banning the structures that would carry it. 070(H), and the city separately commits to following the California Business & Professions Code on amortizing and removing existing off-premise displays. 070(H) lists billboards, along with flags, banners, pennants, and festoons, among the sign types barred outright unless an exception applies. The one path to new billboard-style illumination is a relocation agreement that the City of Corona itself initiates with a billboard or property owner: under that agreement the city may allow an electronic message center, electronic message board, or changeable message board to replace a static billboard face.

The code sets hard trade ratios for these deals. Moving a billboard from a surface street to a freeway-facing parcel requires removing at least three existing billboards and coming in under their combined square footage; moving between two surface-street parcels or two freeway parcels requires the relocated sign's combined square footage to be smaller than what was removed; and a freeway-facing billboard can never be relocated onto a surface-street parcel. The City Council approves these relocation agreements in its sole discretion, and executing one does not strip the resulting sign of its nonconforming-use status under the rest of the code. Outside that narrow relocation process, no new illuminated or electronic billboard can be erected in Corona, on a freeway frontage or otherwise.