Franklin County, KY Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Franklin County Code § 155.373 governs non-premises advertising signs, a category that expressly includes billboards and poster boards. Subdivision (C) is the lighting rule: these signs are permitted to be illuminated, but only with two conditions. First, any illumination shall be external and shall be directed toward the sign. Second, deflectors shall be attached to the lights so that the light is directed toward the sign. The code says nothing about internally lit billboard faces, so internal illumination is not among the permitted options.

The lighting rule sits inside a tight set of location limits. Under division (A), non-premises signs are permitted only in the CH, IC and IG Zone Districts, never on residential used property regardless of zoning, and only when facing streets designated as arterial streets in the functional highway classification system in the Comprehensive Plan. Division (B) adds physical limits: no sign over 240 square feet in area, no more than one sign face on the same side of any structure, a 2,500-foot separation from any other such sign, a 50-foot maximum height, and no placement within 1,000 feet of the right-of-way of an interstate or a Kentucky Transportation Cabinet federal-aid highway.

For an operator, the practical checklist is short. Mount the light source outside the sign face, aim it at the face, and fit a deflector to every light. Because the requirement turns on where the light is directed, a fixture that spills light away from the sign does not meet division (C)(2). The rule dates from Ord. 8, passed 10-23-1987, and is codified in the sign subchapter of the zoning chapter, Chapter 155.