Tall pole signs would no longer be allowed for new businesses anywhere in the city under a full rewrite of Plano's sign regulations that the City Council is scheduled to take up Monday, Nov. 9.
The Planning & Zoning Commission recommended the rewrite 7-0 on Oct. 19, two weeks after it was tabled for more legal review. The case drew no speakers at that hearing; the commission's report lists one written response opposed and one neutral. The council item, a public hearing on Zoning Case 2026-007, was marked ready for the Nov. 9 agenda on Friday.
Why the city is rewriting the rules
The proposal deletes Article 22 of the zoning ordinance and replaces it in full. Planning staff wrote that U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Reed v. Town of Gilbert and City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising, bar most sign rules that depend on what a sign says, while still letting cities treat commercial and noncommercial messages, and on-premise and off-premise signs, differently.
Plano's current categories require reading a sign to know which rules apply, the staff report says. The new version regulates only time, place and manner: when a sign may go up, where, and how big, tall or bright it can be. Staff also cited state rules on nonconforming signs and repeated variance requests as reasons for the update.
What would change
- Pole signs: New ones would be prohibited citywide, a direction the commission gave in September 2025. Pole signs already standing would be treated as nonconforming: owners could keep them and swap the message, but not enlarge them.
- Monument signs: Height and lettering area would depend on the type of street the sign faces. Signs facing Type A thoroughfares, the most generous category in the proposed table, could be 20 feet tall with 150 square feet of copy. The other categories range from 10 to 12 feet and 70 to 100 square feet. The base would have to span more than half the cabinet's width and stand no taller than a third of the cabinet's height, to keep monument signs from looking like pole signs.
- Measuring signs: Staff would drop a rule that shrinks the permitted area 10% for every rectangle beyond the first used to measure lettering, and would stop counting a monument sign's base toward its area.
- Lighting near homes: Lit signs facing a residential use within 300 feet would be prohibited unless they sit above a business's main entrance or are fully screened by another building.
- Temporary signs and promotions: Rules now in the city code would move into the zoning ordinance. Balloons, streamers and inflatables would be treated the same whether or not they carry a message, and temporary signs could not get variances.
- Flags: Flagpoles would be capped at 50 feet or the zoning district's height limit, whichever is lower, with no variance above 60 feet and no more than three poles per lot. Poles under 20 feet would not need a permit.
- Gas station canopies: Signs would be allowed only on canopy sides visible from a street, and stripes and other decorative color bands would no longer count as signs.
Downtown, monument signs would be prohibited in the Business/Government zoning district, where they had been allowed only for institutional and government properties.
