A proposal is in front of the city council
Back in 2001 the city of LA put a billboard moratorium in place. There have been a certain number of digital signs permitted around the Staples center, the convention center and city hotels, but overall there has been a moratorium. The planning commission sent a May 25, 2021 letter to the city council recommending that the city council adopt version B+ of a new sign code. The code will have two tiers. Tier 1 will include sign districts and will have new billboards and digital signs visible to the public out on the road. Tier 2 is only going to allow for signs that are on the interior of properties, lets say big shopping centers, outdoor gathering places like the ESPN Zone here in LA, where those signs don’t show to the public on the street… It will be of interest to see what the city council does with this document. The city council had requested that the planning commission approve version C and the planning commission turned down version C and approved version B+. The Council is getting a code that they did not ask the planning commission to approve.
Lighting restrictions
In tier 1 and tier 2 locations, if you have a digital sign they are going to set time limits. You can turn them on at 7am and you have to turn them off at midnight. Do they have to go completely black or can they lock in one advertising face for the seven hour period? Lets wait and see.
A 5:1 takedown ratio
They are looking at a takedown and exchange. For a new static sign it’s going to be 5 square feet taken down for every 1 square foot that you build. For a digital sign it’s 10 square feet for every 1 square foot of digital sign that you build…the taken down signs need to be within the sign district or adjacent to the district. Obviously this could change with the City Councils recommendation. Sign districts need to be approved by the city council and community groups….For the small companies who want to participate who don’t have inventory to take down, you’re going to have to pay for some kind of public benefit such as, undergrounding cable and wires, sidewalks, other public benefits and fees could be involved too. You’re going to be negotiating with someone at the city
Increased penalties for sign violations
Some companies put up wall murals and billboards and signs illegally and then pay their attorneys to drag out the fight while they lucratively rent the signs. There’s been no teeth in the city’s sign code. That’s about to change here in LA. For a 14 x 48 your first illegal sign offense will be $10,000/day. On your second offense it will be $20,000/day. If you get a third notice it’s going to be $40,000/day. We have many pirates running around the City doing this. We’ll see what happens.
Recordkeeping.
The ordinance says you need to have on file a permit for a location. Not ever company will have a permit in file, especially for locations which are old. The city is missing about 2-3 years worth of permits. They’ve lost the records. The outdoor companies will argue rebuttal presumption. If they have not received a citation or request from the city saying that a billboard is illegally built then that billboard should be considered a legally non-conforming billboard. I’m not sure this has been addressed in the code
Andy Goodman has 33 years experience siting and developing billboards. You can reach Andy at andygoodman.age@gmail.com.
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