Wausau, WI Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

30(1)(g), a rule that applies in every zoning district in the city under the article's lead-in language. 05(5)(k), spells out what counts: an off-premises advertising sign is one that directs attention to a business, commodity, service, or entertainment conducted, sold, or offered somewhere other than the site where the sign stands, and the definition explicitly states that off-premises advertising signs include billboards. Because a true billboard cannot be built at all, Wausau's code has no separate lighting standard written specifically for billboards; the general prohibition forecloses the question before it arises.

35, subject to that section's limits: a nonconforming billboard can be maintained, but any alteration, defined to include a change to the sign's lighting, frame, structure, material, height, or location, forces the sign into compliance with the current title, which bans it outright. The nonconforming-sign rules do carve out one lighting-adjacent allowance: changing the advertising face of a billboard is not itself treated as an 'alteration' that would trigger loss of nonconforming status, so a legacy billboard operator can swap copy without retiring the sign, but cannot add or modify the sign's lighting fixtures without losing its legal nonconforming protection.