Vineland, NJ Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Billboards are one of the sign types Vineland permits under § 425-78.D(1), defined at § 425-78.C as any sign directing attention to a business, product, service or entertainment offered at a location other than the property where the sign sits (except, outside the Pinelands Area, New Jersey Transit weather shelter signage approved by City Council). Like every other permitted sign, a billboard's lighting is governed by the chapter's general illumination rule at Subsection I(5): no direct light or significant glare from any sign may be cast onto a public street, road or sidewalk, or onto an adjoining property, and a sign may be lighted either internally or externally, subject to that glare limit.

The chapter does not carve out a separate lighting standard for billboards, so this glare limit is the operative rule for any illuminated billboard face in the city. Illumination itself is defined at § 425-78.C as the lighting of a sign supplied in any manner by an artificial light source, and luminance is defined as the intensity of light emitted from a surface per unit area at its source, measured at the face of the sign. A billboard that is also a digital sign, meaning it changes message or copy electronically, must separately meet the chapter's digital-sign brightness and operation standards in Subsection L(3).

Before an illuminated billboard is erected, altered or relocated, its owner must obtain a sign zoning permit from the Zoning Officer certifying conformance with § 425-78.