Municipalities Can Adopt Sign Codes that Impose More Stringent Regulations or Prohibitions for Off-premise Signs as Opposed to On-premise Signs
Two outdoor advertising companies challenged a provision of the City of Austin sign code that prohibited changes to a grandfathered billboard because it was an off-premise sign. The City had modified its sign code to define an off-premise sign to mean “a sign advertising a business, person, activity, goods, products, or services not located on the site where the sign is installed.” The City Code prohibited the construction of any new off-premise signs, but allowed pre-existing off-premise signs to remain as grandfathered uses. However, grandfathered signs could not be modified t