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

Fayette County Code § 108-30(a) lists prohibited signs and devices for unincorporated Fayette County, and item (12) names "Billboards" among them, alongside animated signs, rotating signs, searchlights, beacons, roof signs, and pennants. Because a billboard cannot legally exist here, there is no lawful billboard lighting to permit, register, or shield: the fixture itself is banned before lighting is ever considered. Section 108-3 defines "Billboard" as any sign exceeding 60 square feet in area, which sweeps in most off-premises advertising displays that would otherwise carry floodlights or internal illumination.

The county's general sign-illumination rule at § 108-83(c) allows lighting only on signs where illumination is otherwise permitted, and neon tubing is confined to spelling a business name on a wall sign inside a sign cabinet. The county marshal enforces sign violations under § 108-51, and each illegally erected or maintained sign, including a banned, illuminated billboard, is a separate violation. Property owners planning any large freestanding advertising display should confirm with Planning and Zoning that the structure falls under the 60-square-foot billboard threshold before pursuing any illumination plan, because exceeding that threshold makes the whole structure, lit or not, unlawful in the unincorporated county.