Asheville, NC Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

Sec. 7-13-3 lists the signs the city will not let stand in any zoning district, and item (9) targets billboards along the freeway corridor specifically. The prohibition reaches any off-premises sign within 660 feet of the nearest edge of the right-of-way that is visible from the maintained traveled way of the federal aid primary and interstate system, tracking the corridor defined by the Federal Highway Beautification Assistance Act of 1979. The ban applies only to signs constructed or erected on or after the effective date of this chapter, meaning a billboard that already stood in that 660-foot band before the article took effect is not automatically illegal.

Those legal nonconforming signs get to keep standing, but Sec. 7-13-3(9) ties that continued existence to Sec. 7-13-6's maintenance standards, so a grandfathered freeway billboard still has to meet the article's upkeep rules for paint condition, structural soundness, illumination, and vegetation overgrowth or it loses its protected status. The board of adjustment has no discretion to waive this prohibition: Sec. 7-13-3's opening paragraph states outright that the board shall not have the authority to grant variances so as to allow prohibited signs to be installed, so a new billboard proposal in the freeway corridor cannot be approved through a variance request.

Any operator wanting to place off-premises advertising near an Asheville interstate exit is functionally limited to locations outside the 660-foot band, or to on-premises signage instead, since Sec. 7-13-3 also separately bars off-premises signs in most residential and central business districts.