Sun Prairie, WI Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Section 17.40.080 of the Sun Prairie Code of Ordinances bans off-premises advertising signs citywide, but subsection C.1 carves out a narrow Billboard Replacement Program: the owner of a legally nonconforming billboard standing on the effective date of the chapter can apply for a conditional use permit under Section 17.44.050 to swap it for a digital billboard. The replacement sign's area is capped at the size of the billboard(s) removed, though multiple removed billboards can be combined, and the city can approve up to one and one-half times the removed area if the applicant meets added design standards, including a monopole support with a decorative base, landscaping or masonry at the base, and making the display available for periodic public-interest messages as a community benefit.

In every case the total sign area cannot exceed the ceiling set by Wisconsin's own outdoor advertising statute, Section 84.30(4). Placement is tightly constrained: the new digital sign cannot sit any closer to the public road right-of-way than the billboard it replaces, and it can never come within fifteen feet of that right-of-way, measured from the sign's nearest point. Brightness is capped at 0.3 footcandles above ambient light, tested with a footcandle meter at set distances keyed to sign-face size, from 150 feet for a 300 to 375 square foot face up to 250 feet for a 476 to 672 square foot face.

The section also bars embellishments or cutouts on any off-premises digital billboard, and every replacement still has to go through the full conditional-use review and approval procedure in Section 17.44.050.