Costa Mesa, CA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Section 13-112 lists the sign types prohibited in all zones citywide, and subsection (l) names electronic changeable copy signs, except theater marquees and time/temperature signs outright. Section 13-111 defines an electronic changeable copy sign broadly as any sign that uses video displays, lamps, fiber optics, light-emitting diodes (LED's) liquid crystal displays, plasma displays, or any other mechanical or light emitting medium to convey messages, movement, or animation imagery during or between messages, language written to sweep in modern digital billboards and LED reader boards along with older rotating-message displays.

Because the ban sits in the general prohibited-signs list rather than a use-permit table, there is no discretionary path to a digital billboard through a variance or conditional use permit application; the only carve-outs are the two named in the ordinance. 1 gave existing, legal nonconforming electronic changeable copy signs a hard compliance deadline: they had to be modified so that no message or display shall contain movement or animation, nor be displayed for a duration of less than four seconds no later than September 1, 2002.

A legal nonconforming sign also loses its protected status under section 13-122 if it is relocated, altered, or damaged beyond 50% of its replacement cost, at which point it must be brought into full compliance, meaning removed, within 90 days.