Alameda, CA Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

Article III of Chapter VI, adopted by Ord. No. in 1963, targets advertising aimed at motorists on Alameda's landscaped freeway segments. Sec. 2 bars placing or maintaining any advertising display on property adjacent to a section of freeway that has been landscaped, defined in Sec. 1 as planting done for scenic enhancement beyond ordinary erosion control, traffic safety or noise abatement work, if the display is designed to be viewed primarily by people traveling that landscaped stretch. The ban isn't absolute: Sec. 3 exempts signs advertising the sale or lease of the property they sit on, signs identifying the property's owner or occupant, and signs advertising a business, product, or service actually conducted on that property.

A sign or advertising structure that already violates Sec. 2's general placement rules, and that falls inside a landscaped freeway corridor, must be removed within three years under Sec. 4, with the clock running either from the effective date of the violation or from the date the freeway landscaping project was completed and accepted, whichever comes later. Because this article sits alongside the general sign code in Article I, a freeway-facing display also has to clear the underlying advertising-structure permit and placement rules in Sec. 4 before Sec. 2's freeway-specific test even comes into play.