Gordon County, GA Sign Regulations: Window Signs (2026)

The window sign limit is in the Unified Land Development Code § 4.02.01, the site design standards for the New Echota Overlay District. That district covers all property east of Interstate 75 abutting or adjacent to State Highway 225, Craigtown Road, and Newtown Church Road, and its purpose is to protect the historic setting and viewsheds of the New Echota Historic Site, the former Cherokee capital. Section 4.02.02, for the Resaca Battlefield Overlay District, carries the same awning and window paragraph word for word.

Windows and awnings are reserved for secondary signs, meaning signs secondary in nature to, and smaller than, the primary wall and monument signs. A business picks one or the other, awning space or window space. An awning sign is limited to the valance. A window sign stays on the ground floor, can be painted on the inside of the glass, and cannot be hand written. No window can be covered by more than 30 percent of signage, and the secondary sign itself can use at most 20 percent of the square footage allowed for a wall sign.

The neighboring overlay rules shape the rest of the sign package. A single building gets one wall sign and one monument sign, a monument sign tops out at six feet in height and 35 square feet per side, and permitted signs cannot be internally illuminated. The overlay also prohibits electronic or changeable message signs, flashing, blinking, rotating, or otherwise animated signs, banners, streamers or pennants, and billboards. Where the overlay and the underlying zoning district conflict, the stricter standard applies. Farm structures, single-family dwellings and manufactured homes on an existing lot of record, and developments existing when the section took effect fall outside the standards, although expansions or additions are covered.

The Unified Land Development Code defines a window sign as any sign displayed to an outside observer on or through a window or covering a window, which can include a door. Signs wholly inside a building and meant to be viewed from the interior are not regulated by the sign section (§ 5.04.03), and Code of Ordinances § 13-6(b)(14) lists temporary window displays of merchandise sold on-premises among the signs needing no permit.