Chula Vista, CA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

050(E), the City's Billboard Policy, states the City 'completely prohibits the construction, erection or use of any billboards,' with the only exception being billboards that legally existed, or held a valid unexpired permit, as of the date the policy was first adopted. 3, both effective January 1, 2003, and directed that no permit be issued for any billboard violating the policy, with immediate abatement action against violators. The Council also declared the billboard ban independently severable: it would have adopted this single provision even standing alone, and it survives even if a court strikes down other parts of the sign chapter.

flashing images, scintillation or lights of varying intensity, including electronic message board signs' among the sign types 'prohibited throughout the City,' with only barber poles exempted. Because a billboard is defined elsewhere in the same chapter as a permanent structure sign displaying off-site commercial messages, and any digital or LED billboard would also qualify as a flashing or electronic message board sign, a proposed digital billboard is blocked by two independent, stacked prohibitions rather than one. The code does allow relocation agreements for presently existing, legal billboards under Business and Professions Code Section 5412, but that relocation allowance does not permit conversion of an existing static billboard face to a digital or electronic display.