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

02 governs advertising near freeways. 020 states that no advertising display may be placed or maintained on property within the city within six hundred feet of the exterior boundary of a freeway if the display is designed to be viewed primarily by people traveling on that freeway. 010 to include structures and signs erected for outdoor advertising, but it excludes official court or public-body notices, legally required directional or warning signs, and signs naming the city or civic, fraternal or religious organizations located on the site.

030 allows a narrow use permit exception consistent with Chapter 40 (the zoning code) if the display exclusively advertises the sale or lease of the property it sits on, identifies the property's owner or occupant, advertises goods or services produced on-site, or carries noncommercial speech on sociological, religious or economic subjects. No use permit may issue for a display exceeding three hundred square feet, containing moving parts, imitating official freeway signage, using blinding illumination, or showing a red or blinking light that could be mistaken for a warning signal.

040 declares any advertising display placed or maintained in violation of the article a public nuisance that the city may remove or destroy summarily and without notice, a notably harder remedy than the standard hearing process used for garage-sale signs elsewhere in the same chapter.