Clarkstown, NY Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Chapter 243, the Town of Clarkstown Sign Law, does not merely limit digital billboards, it bans them. Section 243-5A prohibits "flashing, moving, animated, digital (except time or temperature), or fluttering signs," and § 243-5G separately lists "billboards" as prohibited anywhere in town, regardless of zoning district. A third, more recent provision added in 2021, § 243-5V, targets the modern electronic reader board directly: it bars any such board "when visible from a public space," carving out a narrow exception in § 243-5V(1) only for emergency service organizations, firehouses and ambulance corps.

Read together, these three subsections close off every route a commercial digital billboard or LED reader board could take into Clarkstown: it cannot be a freestanding billboard, it cannot flash or animate, and it cannot function as an electronic reader board unless the owner is an emergency responder. The only carve-out for digital technology is the narrowly worded time-and-temperature sign, which by definition cannot carry advertising or any other message. Because signs are administered by the Building Inspector under § 243-8A and no permit exists for anything on the § 243-5 prohibited list, there is no application path, variance shortcut, or waiver a property owner or advertiser can use to legally install a digital billboard; the Building Department will not process a permit application for a sign category the chapter prohibits outright.

The Zoning Board of Appeals' variance authority under § 243-14 runs to the chapter's standards and requirements, not to signs the law has already banned entirely.