Vestavia Hills, AL Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

1 layers on additional restrictions. The display can change no more than once every 8 seconds, and the change itself has to be instantaneous, no fading, rolling, dissolving or window-shading effects, with no flashing, scintillation or movement within an individual image. Every electronic message board must carry an ambient light monitor that automatically dims the display, and the Ordinance sets hard brightness ceilings: no more than 5,000 nits measured at the sign face during daylight, and no more than 500 nits between dusk and dawn.

A malfunctioning display that starts flashing or moving on its own has to be repaired or disconnected within 24 hours. The total area of electronic message board elements on a sign cannot exceed 200 square feet, and the Ordinance imposes residential buffers based on how much of the sign uses video technology: a sign with 100 or more square feet of video area can't be built within 500 feet of a residential zoning district, one with 20 to under 100 square feet keeps a 200-foot buffer, and anything under 20 square feet of video area stays at least 100 feet from land zoned and used exclusively for single-family use.

Those residential buffers don't apply within the City's mixed-use and commercial districts that allow residential uses, and the smallest-tier buffer is deliberately written to let institutional uses in residential districts still use the technology.