Cass County, MO Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

Section 400.800 regulates advertising billboards along the county's highway corridors, and its purpose clause explains why: the County adopted these standards for 'billboards along primary highways and roadways under the maintenance and jurisdiction of the Missouri Department of Transportation.' Subsection C.3 confines billboard placement to a corridor 'within six hundred sixty (660) feet of the nearest edge of the rights-of-way of any State maintained highway or street that is controlled by the State of Missouri Department of Transportation,' and requires the applicant to obtain 'a sign permit from the Missouri Department of Transportation' in addition to the county's own Special Use Permit required under Section 400.800(B).

Spacing along that corridor is separately controlled: Section 400.800(C)(2) bars a new billboard from sitting closer than 1,400 feet to another billboard on the same side of the road, and if two applications for the same stretch of highway conflict, the County processes them in the order received, holding the second application pending until the first is resolved or denied. The same subsection sets physical standards for anything built in that highway-facing corridor: a maximum sign area of 800 square feet per face, a height cap of 30 feet with a maximum length of 60 feet under Section 400.800(C)(7), and a height ceiling of 50 feet above the road's right-of-way grade under Section 400.800(C)(8)(b).

Billboards also cannot be mounted on a rooftop under Section 400.800(C)(4), and any wall-mounted billboard must be verified by the County to meet current building code loads under Section 400.800(C)(5). Every billboard application in this corridor must include a drawing showing every other billboard and principal freestanding sign within 2,640 feet in each direction along both sides of the highway.