Caddo Parish, LA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Section 9.8 of the Caddo Parish Unified Development Code opens with a blanket prohibition: after the Code's effective date, no new billboard, static or electronic, may be built, and no sign permit will issue for one anywhere in the parish except as the section specifically allows. Electronic billboards are only permitted in the C-2, C-3, C-4, I-1, and I-2 zoning districts, or within 660 feet of a federal interstate or primary aid highway on land zoned commercial or industrial; every residential district, plus C-1, C-UC, C-UV, D-1, OR, NA, OS, and IC, is off-limits, and a parcel cannot be rezoned solely to make room for one.

Building a new electronic billboard also requires removing an existing conforming billboard, or removing nonconforming billboards whose combined sign area is at least twice the size of the new one, with demolition permits required for each structure taken down before the new sign can go up. Section 9.8.D makes the owner or operator list an emergency contact who can shut the display off within twelve hours of a malfunction, and the sign must default to a blank black screen or power off automatically if it malfunctions.

The operational standards in subsection E.10 govern how the display behaves: only one electronic billboard per lot, images limited to a series of still pictures with no appearance of motion, and a minimum eight-second dwell time between messages, with the changeover itself completed in one second or less. Animation, blinking lights, sound, smoke, and any flashing or scrolling transition are all barred, and brightness is capped at 6,000 nits during daylight and 500 nits from dusk to dawn, measured at the sign face at maximum brightness.

Height, size, spacing from other billboards, and setback from residential property lines are further restricted by Tables 9-5 through 9-8 in the same section, and electronic billboards are additionally banned within designated historic districts and scenic corridors under subsection J.