Lynchburg, VA Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Sec. 16(h) sets the lighting rules that apply to every lit billboard in Lynchburg, digital or static. Any lighting fixture on a billboard must be enclosed within the sign structure or otherwise shaded or indirect, so that the light source itself does not shine into the eyes of passing motorists or into neighboring residences. The ordinance restricts illumination to white light only: no colored floodlighting is permitted on a billboard face. It also bars any flashing, on-and-off sign, and separately prohibits any sign that simulates movement, a category the ordinance explicitly says covers video and animation effects, which closes off using a billboard as a video screen outside the narrower digital-billboard allowance in paragraph (j).

Paragraph (h) further forbids fluorescent paint or any other highly reflective surface on a billboard, closing off a workaround that would otherwise let an unlit sign glow under headlights or streetlight the way a lit one would. These lighting standards apply on top of, not instead of, the general outdoor lighting chapter at Sec. 2-65: because a billboard counts as commercial exterior lighting, its fixtures also fall under the citywide shielding and spillover limits at Sec. 3 wherever the billboard's light could otherwise cross onto an adjoining residential property line.

A digital billboard converted or built under paragraph (j) still has to satisfy the same white-light, no-flashing standard in paragraph (h) in addition to the six-second message-change and brightness-dimming rules specific to digital displays in paragraph (k).