Lake County, CA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Lake County treats billboards, formally 'off-site outdoor advertising signs,' as a discretionary land use rather than a right. 22 allows them only in the Service Commercial (C3), Commercial/Manufacturing (M1), Heavy Industrial (M2) and Planned Development Commercial (PDC) districts, and only after the applicant secures a major use permit from the Community Development Department for each sign. Within those permits, the county caps every billboard at 400 square feet per face, restricts each parcel to one sign, and limits height to 12 feet from ground level to the bottom of the sign unless down-sloping terrain justifies more.

The lighting rule in subsection (d) is the county's de facto ban on digital and LED billboards: a permitted sign must be non-illuminated or use only indirect lighting, meaning an external light source such as a spotlight rather than internally lit or self-illuminated panels. Subsection (e) further confines billboards to Community Growth Boundaries mapped in the Lake County General Plan, within 1,000 feet of those boundaries, or inside an incorporated city's sphere of influence, keeping billboard structures out of rural and scenic areas. A billboard's major use permit is not permanent: subsection (f) sets a five-year term, after which the operator must file for renewal or the sign use expires; renewals may also run for a maximum of five years each.