Multnomah County, OR Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

6770(E) sets the development standards that apply whenever a billboard is established, changed, altered, or expanded in unincorporated Multnomah County, and subsection (11) is the county's directional-lighting rule: billboard lights must be placed so the light is directed downward onto the billboard face and not directed toward a street or adjacent residential unit. The rule works alongside (E)(9), which separately bans moving parts, flashing, or intermittent lights on any billboard, so together the two subsections control both the direction and the behavior of billboard illumination.

Section (E)(12) adds a related protection, requiring that access to solar radiation for an existing solar energy collector be shielded from encroachment when a billboard is placed nearby. All billboard maintenance and reconstruction, including lighting fixtures, must also conform to applicable county building regulations under (E)(4). Because the lighting standard is folded into the same development-standards subsection as height, size, and safety requirements, a billboard owner who installs uplighting or angles fixtures toward a neighboring street or house is out of compliance with the same section that governs the billboard's physical dimensions, not a separate sign-illumination chapter.

The rule applies only within unincorporated Multnomah County; Portland, Gresham, Troutdale, Fairview, Wood Village and Maywood Park regulate billboard lighting under their own city sign codes.