Haverhill, MA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Digital billboards and electronic message centers depend on the ability to change brightness, color or image, and Haverhill's zoning ordinance targets exactly that capability. Section 6.2.3(2) bars any sign in any district from having blinking, flashing or fluttering lights or any other illuminating device which has a changing light intensity, brightness or color, and separately bans beacon lights outright. Section 6.2.3(3) adds that no colored lights may be used in any manner that could be confused with or mistaken for a traffic control device, closing off colored animated displays near intersections.

Together these two clauses apply citywide, in every zoning district, to every sign type covered by § 6.2, not just freestanding billboards. A sign owner can still install a wall, projecting or freestanding sign with static, non-changing illumination; the ordinance's carve-outs run the other way, exempting only signs with replaceable copy on an approved painted or printed sign or theater marquee from the permit requirement in § 10.1.2(1), not from the illumination ban itself. Any sign erected or altered still needs a Building Commissioner permit under § 10.1.1, and the Commissioner can deny a permit or order a nonconforming installation removed once it's discovered.

The restriction has stood without a carved-out exception for digital technology, meaning even a newly installed LED sign that simply dims and brightens automatically for daytime and nighttime viewing would run afoul of the changing-light-intensity language as written.