West Palm Beach, FL Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Billboards are prohibited throughout the City of West Palm Beach under the sign code's legal-noncomplying-sign article, Sec. 94-404(g). The only path to a new or relocated billboard is the Interstate 95 relocation program at Sec. 94-404(g)(5)a: an owner of a pre-March 9, 1998 billboard outside the 350-foot I-95 corridor could relocate it adjacent to I-95 by March 23, 2007, but only after obtaining a Class A special use permit before applying for a billboard sign permit from the construction services department. Relocated billboards are restricted to industrial or general commercial zoning districts, or industrial or commercial planned development districts, must sit within 350 feet of the I-95 mainline, keep a 1,500-foot minimum separation from other billboards on the same side of the highway, and be built on a monopole; roof-mounted billboards are prohibited outright.

The lighting control sits inside the additional application requirements at Sec. iv: the applicant's plans must include "a lighting plan showing the illumination for a relocated billboard directed only towards the billboard face," meaning no spill or wash of light onto adjacent land, streets, or the night sky is permitted by the approved plan. This billboard-specific rule displaces the general sign illumination standard at Sec. " A relocated billboard face is also capped at 700 square feet, must sit at least 50 feet from side and rear property lines and 250 feet from a residential zoning district on the same side of the highway, and cannot exceed 65 feet above the crown of I-95 to the top of the sign face.

Construction of the relocated billboard must begin within six months of the sign permit issuing, extendable once for up to six more months by the building official.