Mebane, NC Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Mebane's sign code treats a flashing or fast-changing electronic display as a prohibited sign under UDO Section 6-7.3(H): any sign with lights, electronic messages or illuminations that flash, move, rotate, scintillate, blink, flicker, vary in intensity, or vary in color, or that use intermittent electrical pulsations, may not be permitted, erected or maintained anywhere in the City's planning and zoning jurisdiction. The ordinance carves out a narrow exception for time, temperature and date displays, traditional barber poles, and electronic changeable message signs, but only if the copy changes at a frequency of once every two seconds or slower, so a fast-cycling digital display still crosses into the banned category even if its wording never repeats an image.

Where a digital face is allowed at all, it has to be built into one of the permitted sign types set out in UDO Section 6-7.7: both ground or monument signs and freestanding or pole signs may carry changeable copy, described as either electronic or manual, as one permitted sign face under Section 6-7.7(B)(9)(d) and Section 6-7.7(C)(9)(d). That still leaves the underlying size, height and illumination limits for whichever sign type the digital face sits on, plus the citywide rule that externally illuminated signs be lighted from the top down and that illuminated signs in O&I districts within 200 feet of residential property shut off by 11:00 p.m. when the business is closed.

A sign permit from the Zoning Administrator, issued under Section 6-7.2, is required before any digital sign face goes up unless the sign qualifies for one of the narrow exemptions in Section 6-7.4.