Polk County, IA Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

Article 11, Division 4, Section 2 of the Polk County Zoning Ordinance sets the standards for off-site signs, the ordinance's term for billboards, which is what governs a sign facing a county road or highway frontage. A freestanding billboard cannot exceed fifty feet above the elevation of the highest road it faces, measured from the closest point of that road to the sign. The sign must still meet the applicable zoning district's setback requirements for principal structures, and it has to be built on a single or double steel pole, which may carry side-by-side, back-to-back or V-shaped faces attached to one structure.

Placement is restricted: no billboard may sit within 100 feet of a lot in the ER, RR, LDR, MDR, HDR, MU or MH districts that is residential or vacant, or within 100 feet of a public square, park, school, church, funeral home, cemetery, library or museum. Spacing between billboards facing the same direction must be at least 1,000 feet, measured along the highway centerline between points directly opposite the signs, regardless of which side of the highway they sit on. Size is capped at 300 square feet in the General Commercial district and 975 square feet in the Light Industrial and Heavy Industrial districts.

Division 4, Section 2(B) layers on a second requirement: off-site signs must also meet the Iowa Administrative Code, Transportation Department [761], Chapter 117 Outdoor Advertising standards, which govern billboards specifically on primary highways. A Sign Permit under Article 11, Division 1 is required before any billboard goes up.