Kent County, DE Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Kent County treats digital billboards as a stricter subset of its general off-premises advertising rules in § 205-73.C. Every billboard, whether static or an electronic variable message sign, must first meet the base standards: it can be located only on a divided highway, must sit back at least 25 feet from the street right-of-way, cannot exceed 288 square feet in area, is limited to one double-faced sign per parcel with no more than one advertisement per side, and cannot exceed 35 feet in height. If a parcel in a BG General Business District already carries an on-premises sign, no off-premises billboard is allowed on that parcel at all.

Separation distances get significantly tighter for electronic displays. Section 205-73.C(7) sets a baseline 1,200-foot radius between any two billboards, but for static-message signs that baseline narrows to a minimum 500-foot separation on controlled-access highways and 300 feet on noncontrolled-access roads. Electronic variable message billboards face the strictest standard in the chapter: they must maintain a 2,500-foot separation from another electronic variable message billboard, and a 500-foot separation from a static-message billboard. The Levy Court retains discretion to approve a lesser distance only for existing nonconforming billboards seeking conditional-use approval; it does not have that discretion to shrink the electronic-to-electronic distance for a new sign.

Because a digital billboard combines the base siting rules with the tighter electronic-sign spacing, an applicant needs a site on a divided highway with no competing on-premises sign nearby and enough distance from every other billboard in the corridor, static or electronic, to satisfy whichever of the § 205-73.C(7) distances applies.