Fountain Valley, CA Sign Regulations: Political Signs (2026)

Fountain Valley Municipal Code § 21.24.080(k), part of the sign chapter enacted by the Fountain Valley City Council, covers protected non-commercial speech temporary signs, the category that holds political and election signs. The display area can carry any protected non-commercial speech, so the rule does not depend on the candidate or the message.

Number: a private property in the city may display a maximum of four temporary non-commercial speech signs per parcel in the residential zone, and one per one hundred feet of arterial street frontage in nonresidential zones. The code says this limits the number of signs, not their spacing.

Size and height: each sign face is capped at three square feet. Signs must be freestanding and cannot exceed six feet in height measured from the adjacent grade. One exception applies: a sign placed in the rear yard of a single-family dwelling that is both adjacent to an arterial street and in the residential zone can reach nine feet.

Timing: in the residential zone the signs can stay up at all times. In nonresidential zones they can be displayed only during the period that begins sixty days before, and ends ten days after, an election held by a local, state or national government entity.

Placement: the same subsection bars these signs from the fifteen-foot corner cutback area defined in Section 21.18.040 and from encroaching on or over the public right-of-way. Under § 21.24.100(d), temporary non-commercial signs on residential property are exempt from the sign permit requirement. Chapter 21.25 covers public property: § 21.25.040 forbids private signs on public property unless the chapter allows them, so a yard sign staked in a city median or park is out of bounds.