Agoura Hills May Buy, Remove Billboards

Agoura Hills residents may soon be asked to chip in and buy the controversial freeway billboards in their city--and then chop them down.

City Council members are considering putting an advisory ballot measure before voters asking whether a citywide assessment district should be formed to finance removal of signs that now clutter a three-mile section of the Ventura Freeway in Agoura Hills.

Cash from the assessment would be paid to outdoor advertising companies and landowners who own the 39 huge free-standing signs and, under state law, must be compensated if local government demands the signs come down.

‘Billboard Alley’

Although many other cities have fought billboards with tough sign-control ordinances, the Agoura Hills approach would be the first of its kind in California, according to sources familiar with the issue.

Officials said the do-it-yourself billboard removal campaign may be needed to guarantee that the area’s notorious “billboard alley” doesn’t become a permanent fixture across the city’s midsection.

Council members said they would consider similar assessment referendums for the November general election to help landscape the sides of the freeway and to bury major electric transmission lines that cross the city.

Officials said Wednesday night they would determine the costs of the three beautification projects and of the vote itself before formally placing any of the issues on the November ballot.

The council action signaled an aggressive new stance toward billboards by the city, which has taken a patient view of the signs since inheriting them from Los Angeles County after incorporation two years ago.

Until this month, Agoura Hills officials had counted on being able to gradually phase out the billboards over five to 10 years as their freeway strip was developed. City planners had hoped to require the signs’ removal as a condition of building permits.

No signs have so far been removed that way, however. And a new state law that took effect Jan. 1 will prevent such a municipal requirement in the future, said Paul Williams, Agoura Hills planning director.

Stan Lancaster, head of the state Department of Transportation’s outdoor advertising office in Sacramento, said Thursday that a 1983 state law has mandated compensation to owners of billboards targeted for removal by governmental agencies. State and local officials have generally said they do not have money for such uses.

Harry Kagin, chief of Caltrans’ right-of-way division, said a formula is used to calculate compensation costs when a local agency wants to force removal of a billboard. But Kagin predicted that, even if it followed that formula, Agoura Hills would face litigation by sign owners because the city is regarded by outdoor advertising companies as a rare, choice location.

Such signs are strictly controlled to the east and west by the cities of Los Angeles, Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks. Zoning laws there, as well as in Agoura Hills, prohibit construction of new billboards close to the freeway.

Cost to Be Calculated

Huse said the proposed underground utilities assessment district would pay for the burial of major high-voltage electric transmission lines that crisscross the city. The cost of that venture is likewise unknown, although he said officials are convinced that “it might never be accomplished otherwise.”