Encino Residents Applaud Proposal to Regulate Signs

A proposed sign ordinance for Ventura Boulevard in Encino that would require 40% of existing signs to be torn down was applauded by homeowners Monday at the first public hearing on the issue.

Speakers called the billboard industry “insatiable and greedy,” and said it had turned the community into “Tijuana North.”

In fact, most of the residents at the hearing said they favored an even more restrictive sign-control measure that was proposed in 1979 but was shot down by the city’s Planning Commission. Under the 1979 guidelines, about 70% of the existing signs on Ventura Boulevard in Encino would have been ordered removed, according to city planner Marcus Woersching.

At the hearing, conducted on behalf of the Planning Commission, Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, who represents Encino, criticized the sign and billboard industry. He said it is a powerful lobby that has “resisted reasonable controls” for past 10 years, and that the proliferation of ever-larger signs along Ventura Boulevard “creates ugliness and the deterioration of the community.”

5-Year Limit

“If you’re a half-mile away, you don’t see the Santa Monica Mountains,” Braude said. “You see Foster and Kleiser,” one of the largest billboard firms in Los Angeles. “That’s their sense of industry responsibility. They’re insatiable and greedy.”

The proposed ordinance would regulate the number, height and size of commercial signs and would prohibit installation of any more billboards. Owners would be forced to remove nonconforming signs within five years.

Representatives of the sign and billboard industry argued that the proposed ordinance is overly restrictive and could ruin the sign industry financially.

Robert Keenan, administrative director of the Sign Users Council of California, said many oil companies, banks and fast-food chains manufacture uniform signs that are used on their stores nationwide. The proposed Encino ordinance, he said, would force those companies to buy more expensive, custom-made signs.

“We don’t favor visual pollution,” Keenan said. “But we are for adequate visibility of a business.”

Precedent Feared

Spokesmen for billboard companies said that outlawing new billboards in Encino would set a precedent that could put them out of business.

“We cannot sit by and see an industry destroyed with total prohibition,” said Pilar Perry, a spokeswoman for Foster and Kleiser.

Comments voiced at the hearing will be reviewed by hearing examiner Jon Perica, who within the next several months will prepare a report and a recommendation for the Planning Commission. After commission review, the issue will go to a City Council committee and, finally, to the full City Council.

Perry, who objected to the characterization of billboards as ugly and the industry as avaricious, said Foster and Kleiser donates advertising space to nonprofit groups and receives public accolades for many of its billboards.

Nike Example Given

“Last year, we started the phenomenon of the Nike ads,” Perry said. “We got so many calls from individuals asking where the Nike ads were so they could go look at them. Billboards on Sunset Boulevard have become a tourist attraction. So, certainly the comment that all billboards are ugly is not held by all.”

The proposal would allow no more than two signs on most buildings, would forbid most roof signs and would outlaw window signs that cover more than 25% of the glass area. It also would establish a 10-foot height limit for any sign that is not attached to a building.

Exceptions to some of the clauses would be granted for buildings of more than three stories and for shopping centers and other “cluster” developments.

Portable signs on the sidewalk in front of buildings, also called “sandwich signs,” would be illegal, as would the banners and pennants common on used-car lots. Signs that flash, blink or rotate--except those indicating time, news or temperature--would be prohibited.

An estimated 615 of the 1,514 signs along Ventura Boulevard in Encino would have to be taken down, lowered or moved, said Woersching, who prepared the draft ordinance.

Beverly Hills Comparison

In his report, Woersching described sign clutter along Ventura Boulevard as “the biggest visual pollution problem facing Encino,” and said that, if the plan were adopted, “Encino would start to look like Beverly Hills or Pasadena--communities that don’t have a visual mess.” Both cities have strict sign controls.

Woersching added that unsightly signs in Encino are “particularly distressing” because the community is among the wealthiest in the Valley and can afford to have a more appealing business district.

Several critics of the proposal maintained that the city should be governed by one uniform sign ordinance, rather than individual controls for each community. A task force comprised of industry representatives, merchants and residents has been working for about a year on a citywide sign measure that will go before a council committee next month.

Opponents of the Encino proposal maintained that, if each community within the city adopted its own sign controls, enforcement would be a nightmare.

Call for Uniformity

“I am totally against the two-tier approach,” said Valley homeowner activist Anson Burlingame, who argued for a single, citywide ordinance. “If it’s good enough for Encino or Tarzana, it’s good enough for South-Central L.A.

“This attitude of, ‘We’re better than you,’ is offensive.”

Homeowner groups in Encino have been fighting for sign controls for several years. The 1979 proposal, which was intended to be included in the community plan that governs development in Encino, was deleted by the Planning Commission when it became apparent that political pressure from merchants and the sign industry could torpedo the entire master plan.

Instead, the commission withdrew the sign portion and sent the master plan on to the council, which adopted it in 1980. The commission then directed the Planning Department staff to restudy the sign ordinance and try to reach a compromise with the industry.

The Encino Chamber of Commerce supports the weakened plan, with modifications, but the sign and billboard industry continues to object.

At the same time, Homeowners of Encino, which represents 200 residents, has filed suit against the City of Los Angeles, asking that signs and billboards be forced to comply with the same height restrictions that govern buildings. The group has cited two billboards in Encino that extend far above the 45-foot height limit that was imposed on buildings when the community’s master plan was adopted. A hearing on the suit is scheduled for March 28.