Tamarac, FL Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

LDC § 10-4.10(D)(4)(a)G.4 folds state highway-lighting standards directly into Tamarac's own sign code: every illuminated, digital, or animated billboard sign must comply with the lighting, brightness, Nits, and lumens requirements the Florida Department of Transportation sets, and it must also meet FDOT's requirements for how a message displays when it is illuminated, moving, changing at intervals, or transitioning from one image to the next. The Code adds its own instantaneous-transition rule on top of the FDOT standard: the change from one message to the next must happen all at once across the entire sign face, so a billboard cannot fade, wipe, or dissolve between images even if FDOT's brightness limits are otherwise met.

This lighting standard sits alongside the section's separate ambient-light-monitor requirement, which forces every digital sign to carry a sensor that automatically adjusts brightness to outdoor conditions, and its ban on animated movement, blinking, or flashing during the static display period. Together they mean a billboard operator has to satisfy two lighting regimes at once, state DOT photometric limits and the city's own instantaneous-transition and ambient-adjustment rules, before Community Development will sign off on the special exception under LDC § 10-5.4(G) that every billboard needs. An applicant must also submit its FDOT lighting permit alongside the city permit application, since § 10-4.10(D)(4)(a)H requires proof of the FDOT and Broward County approvals before the city will issue its own.