Lynchburg, VA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Lynchburg's billboard ordinance treats digital displays as a subcategory of the same Sec. 16 that governs all off-premises advertising structures. Paragraph (j) makes commercial electronic variable message signs and digital billboards legal, conforming, by-right uses in the I-2 Light Industrial and I-3 Heavy Industrial districts, and separately allows any billboard already standing in a B-5 General Business district to be converted to digital and remain legal and conforming once converted. Any digital billboard, whether newly built in an industrial district or converted from an existing B-5 structure, must then satisfy the three additional standards in paragraph (k): the displayed message cannot change more than once every six seconds, display brightness cannot exceed three-tenths of a foot-candle over ambient light levels as measured 250 feet perpendicular to the sign face, and the sign must carry automatic dimming capability to hold that brightness ceiling as ambient light changes.

Digital billboards remain subject to every other requirement in Sec. 16 that applies to conventional billboards: the 675-square-foot maximum advertising surface, the 40-foot height ceiling measured from the base or the roadway grade, the prohibition on flashing or movement-simulating displays under paragraph (h), the ban on new construction within 1,320 feet of the John Lynch Memorial Bridge and the Carter Glass Bridge, and the requirement in paragraph (m) that no billboard be erected, rebuilt, altered, or relocated without a Building Permit. A billboard erected before the ordinance's June 2018 amendment that does not meet these standards is treated as a legal nonconforming structure rather than an immediate violation.