Billboard industry seeks to end local control in North Carolina

Just as South Dakota is looking to give control over sign regulation to local communities, the billboard industry in North Carolina is trying to end local regulation of signs in that state.

The move comes just months after residents of Durham, NC fought off an attempt by Fairway Outdoor Advertising to get the city to open up its regulations and allow them to convert some static billboards to digital.  Citizens, who worked hard to craft regulations that would eventually see Durham billboard-free, rose up en masse to protest the proposal.  A unanimous city council vetoed the proposal.

"The big concern is who decides about community appearance and whether billboards are sited in a community, and how visible they are," said Ben Hitchings, the planning director in Morrisville and past legislative chair of the N.C. Chapter of the American Planning Association.  "It's a key question of local control: Will communities still be allowed to control the appearance of their own community, or will that be something dictated [to them], in this case by the billboard industry?"

The only entity that appears opposed to local control is the powerful billboard industry, which understands that when given a voice, communities quite naturally often prefer beauty over blight. 

Massachusetts Judge orders billboard to come down

by Jack Foley / Herald News

A Superior Court judge has ruled that a large billboard located on property owned by a Massachusetts State Senator must come down because it was improperly permitted.

A smaller, shorter billboard stood on the site for several decades and became nonconforming because of its location in a residential neighborhood.  It was grandfathered in and allowed to stand, however when that sign was completely removed and a new one was built, it lost its grandfathered status.

The judge ruled that the new sign should not have been given a permit because it is located in a residential area.  The sign owners have 90 days to take it down.

Jacksonville considers reinterpreting city charter to allow digital billboards

The city of Jacksonville, FL is poised to be bombarded with a slew of digital billboards if a new interpretation of the city charter is allowed to stand.

photo by Max Ashburn

A 1995 settlement agreement between the city, concerned citizens and billboard companies prohibited construction of new billboards in Jacksonville.  It also sought to gradually clean up the city's visual environment by requiring that a certain number of signs come down each year in residential areas and allowing a certain number to be rebuilt along busy commercial corridors using "identical sign faces."

In 2009 Clear Channel Outdoor requested permits to rebuild four billboards as digital billboards, a request that was denied by then-City Attorney Shannon Eller, who said flat out that the digital signs were a completely different kind of billboard and not identical in any way to the ones they would be replacing.

Digital billboards were not mentioned in the 1995 settlement agreement because there were no digital billboards in Duval County at that time.  In fact digital billboards as we know them today didn't exist at all in 1995.  However, any common sense interpretation of the requirement for an "identical" or "exact" sign face replacement says that a static sign rebuilt as digital does not meet that requirement.

Still, current city attorneys and the departing mayor stand poised to allow this reinterpretation (or really, misinterpretation), to go through.  They are sure to meet strong opposition from citizens, community groups and the legal community.  Stay tuned.

Winnipeg orders downtown digital billboard turned off

Our neighbors to the north have not been immune from the onslaught of digital billboards, and now one of Canada's largest cities has ordered a large digital sign be turned off.

photo from CBC news

The sign, in downtown Winnipeg, was erected illegally and in spite of the fact that permits for it had been denied.  At three stories high, it shown light across neighboring buildings.  Residents in one building complained to city officials, who again denied the sign a permit and ordered that it come down.

Gordon McDiarmid, who lives nearby, called the illumination from LED bulbs on the sign "highly intrusive" and "disturbing."  He said it is akin to having an outdoor movie theatre "right outside our window 24 hours a day."

Florida town says goodbye to last billboard

A small town on the Atlantic coast of Florida saw its last billboard removed in December.  The town of Beverly Beach said good riddance to the sign, which had lingered around since it was damaged during hurricanes in 2005.

Clear Channel Outdoor, the owner of the sign, had wanted to renegotiate with the town to keep the billboard up, but the town held firm despite fears of litigation.

John McDonald, the town commissioner, thinks Beverly Beach's lack of billboards distinguishes it from nearby places.  "We're probably the only town around here that has no billboards," he said. "I think it makes the place much better-looking than everything else."

Where are Vermont's roadside billboards?

At the history museum of course!

Light pollution linked to air pollution

photo from Curbed LA Magazine

A new article in Wired examines a molecule that fights air pollution - with one catch:  it only works in the dark.  The molecule - a "nitrate radical" - breaks down harmful chemicals and toxic fumes in the air, but only under the cover of darkness.

Normally the molecule comes to life at night - but in our modern night skies full of the spillover of man-made lights - there is less and less of the benevolent molecule in the atmosphere.

The article mentions bright electronic billboards as contributors to light pollution and thus the reduction of the air-scrubbing molecule.

Main Street Revisted

Postcard view of Sauk Centre, MN, "The Original Main Street," circa 1975

(image via postcardy.blogspot.com)

Scenic Minnesota has produced an excellent short film about "signs, icons and changing times" in the Land of Sinclair Lewis and the Original Main Street. Main Street Revisited is a must see. More Scenic Minnesota videos here.

Scenic Jacksonville fights to preserve digital billboard ban

Digital billboard near Tampa traffic signal (photo: myfoxtampabay.com)

Scenic Jacksonville is opposing Clear Channel's effort to replace eight traditional billboards with new digital ones despite a 1995 settlement agreement between the City and sign operators prohibiting new billboards. While the Federal Highway Administration allows digital billboards, it recognizes their nature is quite distinct from traditional billboards; that is why it does not allow them to replace nonconforming signs. However, Jacksonville's law department has reversed its common sense opinion from just last year that agreed that digital signs are new construction, and it now approves of Clear Channel's effort to introduce a new form of distraction and sign blight to Jacksonsville roadways.

Seattle Skyline Gets Reprieve

Seattle's scenic advocates won a huge victory yesterday when Council decided to postpone a vote to loosen restrictions on large, lighted corporate signs downtown. (See here for previous post.) The delay allows the city to work with citizens in a much more productive manner on any changes to the sign code. The Seattle Times put it well in an editorial against the ordinance,

Vibrant and aesthetically pleasing urban design are key Northwest values. Russell should find another way to brand itself. Seattle's skyline is gorgeous just the way it is.