Montebello, CA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Montebello adopted its off-premises digital display ordinance to manage the conversion and relocation of existing billboards rather than to open the city broadly to new ones. Under Section 17.62.105(B), a brand-new digital display sign, or the relocation of an existing off-premises sign into a digital format, is permitted only inside the Interstate 5 Freeway Digital Display Sign Corridor, defined as within two hundred feet of the I-5 right-of-way along the city's southern edge, or the California State Route 60 Freeway Digital Display Sign Corridor, defined as within six hundred feet of the SR-60 right-of-way.

Every new or relocated display also needs a development agreement approved by the city council that negotiates public benefits, in addition to an off-premises digital display sign permit issued by the planning manager. Section 17.62.105(F) then layers on numeric limits: no display face may exceed six hundred seventy-two square feet excluding trim and structural members, no display may sit within five hundred feet of another off-premises display on the same freeway side or within one thousand feet of another digital display, none may attach to a rooftop or encroach into the public right-of-way, and none may be located within two hundred feet of residentially zoned property.

A separate poster-conversion pathway in subsection (C) lets an existing off-premises sign convert to digital only if it is two hundred to three hundred square feet, not freeway-facing, and at least five hundred feet from residential zoning.