Springfield, OH Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Table 1119.08.1: Billboard Standards, referenced at § 1119.08(b)(1), sets separate approval layers for a billboard's structure and its lighting. Billboards are prohibited ('X') in every Residential and Public/Institutional district and in the C-DT downtown district; they are allowed only in the C-LC/C-HC commercial and I-LI/I-HI industrial districts, and even there only by Conditional Use Permit, with a base permit required, a limit of one billboard per lot, a 500-square-foot area cap, and a 35-foot height cap. Lighting is a further, separate approval: both External Illumination and Internal Illumination are marked 'C' in the table for the C-LC/C-HC and I-LI/I-HI districts, meaning an illuminated billboard face needs its own Conditional Use Permit beyond the base billboard permit, and illumination is not available at all ('-') anywhere else because billboards aren't allowed there in the first place.

Section 1119.08(b)(2) adds that a billboard cannot sit within 200 feet of a public parking area, educational institution, religious land use, cemetery, or government use, and cannot exceed the height Table 1119.08.1 prescribes measured from the nearest street grade. Any billboard lighting, once permitted, must also meet Chapter 1118's Site Lighting standards, including the citywide ban on light types of limited spectral emission such as low-pressure sodium or mercury vapor fixtures under § 1118.03(b)(7). The Community Development Director enforces both chapters under § 1132.01; an unpermitted illuminated billboard is a Class B Civil Offense under § 1324.03(a)(6), with a $100 fine ($200 if delinquent) under § 1324.99.