Lenexa, KS Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Section 4-1-E-3 of the Lenexa City Code is the operative rule. It begins by prohibiting any sign or attention-attracting device not specifically permitted, with one carve-out: any permitted sign can carry non-commercial speech in place of its other message.

Three separate prohibitions in the same section reach a digital or electronic billboard. The off-site sign ban covers any sign that directs attention to a business, commodity, service, product or activity not conducted, sold, offered or available on the premises where the sign stands or is affixed. That is the business model of a third-party billboard. The changeable copy ban says no changeable copy signs are permitted except time and temperature information incorporated into allowable sign area, which keeps out message boards whose copy changes. The moving sign ban covers signs with visible moving, revolving or rotating parts, visible mechanical movement of any description, or apparent visible movement achieved by electrical, electronic or mechanical means, including the optical illusion of changing copy.

The same section's traffic-hazard clause adds that lights that flash, blink, flicker or vary in intensity or color are prohibited, except for time/temperature, date, stock market or similar brief informational displays. A display limited to time and temperature is therefore the narrow electronic use the code accepts, and it counts inside the sign area already allowed on the business's own sign.

The permitted-sign sections that follow, including monument, facade, real estate and temporary signs, are written for the property or business where the sign stands. Freeway frontage monument signs, for example, are capped at 250 square feet. The only relief is a deviation from the Planning Commission under Section 4-1-E-14, based on unique architectural treatments, special project conditions or specific hardship. Its criteria ask whether the deviation will adversely affect safety, distract traffic on adjacent streets or clutter the visual landscape.