The city of Bloomington, Indiana planning commission is entertaining a proposal to amortize up to 47 billboards by 2031. When the proposal was discussed at a planning meeting and one of the planning commissioners asked why no billboard companies were present the Bloomington city attorney said none of the billboard companies was notified. The planning commission will hold a second meeting to discuss the plan on October 9.
Billboard Insider’s take: How would the planning commissioners like it if they had a house and the city’s mayor said “it spoils the view from the road and you’ve lived in the house long enough so we are going to make you take it down without compensation”. That’s what they are proposing to do to the billboard companies. Before the Bloomington pols move ahead with this unfair and ill-advised proposal they might look at what happened when Tacoma attempted to amortize billboards – 20 years of litigation followed by a settlement with no amortization. For arguments against amortization see:
To receive a free morning newsletter with each day’s Billboard insider articles email info@billboardinsider.com with the word “Subscribe” in the title. Our newsletter is free and we don’t sell our subscriber list.
Paid Advertisement
I always use the term “slow motion confiscation” and the metaphor, imagine you own a ten story building and suddenly a town decides that buildings cannot exceed 5 stories. Any building with more than 5 stories have ten years to remove. This is not a case of eminent domain. And we could never be compensated the true value of the asset, anyway. NEVER!
When a town in our market floated the idea of amortization, we immediately got letters from all of our clients, speaking to the importance of billboard advertising to their business. We did the same with landowners. Also, we contacted each council member and asked to meet with them. We met with the mayor and City Manager. In the end, it worked and we were able to prevail. But it was a royal PIA and took a lot of time.
Amortization is not compensation.