Council Loosens Billboard Rules, Opens Door to Relocations and Digital Signs

The City Council on Tuesday approved changes to the city's billboard rules that would allow advertisers to seek relocations, replacements and modernizations under new agreements negotiated with the city.

The ordinance maintains the City Council as the sole authority to approve or deny billboard relocation agreements and to decide the terms of those agreements. City staff said the update is meant to add flexibility to a rule that effectively blocked most billboard relocation requests.

The changes come after Lamar Advertising submitted an unsolicited application in 2025 to relocate and replace its billboards in Riverside. Under the city's former rules, that proposal could not move forward because the code did not allow applicant-initiated relocation requests and only applied to a narrow set of billboards on parcels once approved by Riverside County and later annexed into the city.

Riverside's existing billboard policy still bans new billboards — but the revised rules create a path for city-initiated or applicant-initiated billboard relocation, replacement or modernization if the city and billboard owner enter into a Billboard Relocation Agreement. Once that agreement is approved, the Community and Economic Development director can issue a Billboard Relocation Permit.

The council can now negotiate a wide range of terms in those agreements — including the dimensions and type of sign, whether it is analog or digital, whether it is single-sided or double-sided, and where it is located. The ordinance also allows agreements to include takedown ratios, requiring billboard operators to remove existing signs in exchange for permission to install new ones.

The city can also negotiate public benefit provisions. Those may include site improvements, public art, street or infrastructure upgrades, public messaging, annual fees, revenue-sharing arrangements or other measures that provide community or fiscal benefits.

City staff said the changes would give Riverside more leverage in dealing with billboard operators while still keeping control over the approval process.

The report also noted that the city's previous rules do not allow digital or electronic displays and generally require relocated billboards to stay on the same parcel and remain the same size and type.

The council held an initial hearing on the changes March 24 and voted unanimously to give final approval Tuesday.