Sandoval County, NM Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Article II of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, the Sign Ordinance of Sandoval County, dedicates Section 10 to billboards and puts the Planning Commission, not the Zoning Officer, in charge of issuing billboard sign permits. S. Highway 550 rights-of-way, and no two billboards on the same side of the road may stand closer than 2,000 feet apart. Height is capped at 35 feet above the roadway grade or 17 feet above the ground the sign sits on, whichever is lower, and total sign area can't exceed 300 square feet across a maximum of two parallel, back-to-back faces of matching size on one support structure.

Construction must be monument-style, built of masonry, architecturally harmonious with the surrounding landscape, and set back at least 30 feet from the highway property line; billboards mounted flat against another structure are prohibited outright. Subsection H is unambiguous: a billboard "May not be illuminated by any means," a blanket rule that reaches any digital, LED, or electronic message center, since those displays are illumination by definition. That sits on top of the general sign restrictions in Section 6, which bar flashing, intermittent, or moving light on any sign visible from a highway. Free-standing signs and billboards over 20 feet tall also require an engineer-stamped design drawing before the county will issue a permit.