Dearborn Heights, MI Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Chapter 26 of the Dearborn Heights City Code treats billboards as a separate, banned sign type rather than a permitted category with size limits. Sec. 26-3 defines a billboard as a freestanding sign over two hundred square feet, supported by upright braces or poles, that advertises a product, event, person or business unrelated to the premises where it stands. Sec. 26-11(15) then lists 'the installation of any billboard' among the chapter's prohibited signs, alongside roof signs, pole signs and home occupation signs. Because the definition already exceeds the two hundred square-foot area cap for any monument or off-premises sign under Sec. 26-8, there is no path to a compliant conventional billboard, digital or static.

The same section separately targets the technology a digital billboard would use. Sec. 26-11(1) prohibits any sign 'illuminated by any flashing or moving lights,' which rules out an animated or scrolling display even on a sign that is not classified as a billboard. The subsection carves out two narrow exceptions: barber poles, and liquid electronic display ('l.e.d.') signs that otherwise meet the chapter's placement, area and illumination standards. A static, non-flashing LED sign sized within the on-premises limits for its zoning district can be lawful; an off-premises digital billboard cannot, because it fails both the billboard ban and, if animated, the flashing-lights ban.

Enforcement runs through the building and engineering department, which under Sec. 26-19 may treat an unlawfully erected sign as a nuisance and remove it at the owner's expense after written notice and an opportunity to be heard. The chapter's prohibitions can be waived only by the board of sign appeals under Sec. 26-18, which requires a showing of practical difficulty or hardship peculiar to the property before granting any variance from Sec. 26-11.