Ogden, UT Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Title 18, the Outdoor Sign Code, sets one lighting rule that applies to every sign type in Ogden City, from a small wall sign to an off-premises billboard: under section 18-2-4, part of the chapter 2 construction standards, any light fixture attached to a sign or sign structure cannot extend more than eight feet from that structure. The title separately defines a 'SIGN, ILLUMINATED' as any sign using a light source, internal or external, to make its message readable, and a 'SIGN, FLOODLIGHTED' as a sign lit only by devices that reflect or project light onto it from the outside, the arrangement most billboards along Ogden's freeway corridors use.

Because chapter 3's off-premises sign rules at section 18-3-27 carve out no separate lighting standard for billboards, the general chapter 2 limit is the one that governs their lights. Before any illuminated or floodlighted sign, billboard included, can be tied into an electrical source, section 18-1-5 requires the owner to obtain a separate electrical permit from the Division of Building Services, on top of the standard sign permit, and section 18-2-3 requires that wiring meet the current electrical code and title 7, chapter 14 of the Ogden City Code.

The Building Services Division administers and enforces Title 18 under section 18-1-8, inspecting every permitted sign and requiring proper maintenance, and the building official may enter a property at reasonable times to check a sign's compliance. A sign that violates the lighting or permit rules is not shielded from the sign removal and nonconforming-sign process in section 18-1-9, which lets the building official order the sign rebuilt or removed to conform.