East Brunswick, NJ Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

The Township Code has no separate digital billboard section. The rules come from two places: the all-zones prohibitions in § 228-253 and the billboard conditional use standards. Section 228-253 prohibits signs using blinking, flashing, vibrating, flickering, tracer or sequential lighting, which rules out animated or sequenced displays. Subsection P prohibits signs with manual or electronic changeable type or symbols, with two carve-outs: movie marquees and signs indicating the time and temperature only. Subsection H bars signs advertising a product or service not sold on the premises, except for billboards as a conditional use in the P-I and C-2 zones. Subsection C lets the Director of Public Safety bar any sign that unreasonably tends to distract drivers or otherwise constitutes a traffic hazard.

Billboards themselves are a conditional use along the New Jersey Turnpike. In the C-2 Neighborhood Business District, § 228-166.1 D provides that no part of a billboard can extend more than one hundred (100) feet from the Turnpike right-of-way. It sets a ten (10) foot minimum setback from the Turnpike right-of-way, fifty (50) feet from the front property line and fifteen (15) feet from all other lot lines, and caps height at forty (40) feet, with the Planning Board able to approve up to seventy-five (75) feet. Billboards stand at least 1000 feet apart on the same side of the Turnpike, show no more than 672 square feet in one direction, sit no closer than two hundred (200) feet to a residential zone or municipal boundary, and cannot be illuminated between 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. Lighting must restrict glare and spillover to the immediate area of the sign, and blinking or flashing lights are prohibited. No more than a total of four billboards are permitted along the Turnpike in East Brunswick, and each needs site plan approval from the Planning Board. The P-I Planned Industrial Park District carries its own billboard section at § 228-205.1 B with the same lighting rule.