City Gets Tough, Plucks Illegal Sale Signs

San Diego’s war on illegal real estate signs is in full gear, with city workers raking in offending signs by the truckload and the City Council poised to clamp down on the proliferation of real estate signs in this subdivision boomtown.

A squadron of enforcers assigned to the sign detail this summer has already confiscated more than 7,000 placards advertising condominiums, homes or new housing developments that, because of their location or size, were in violation of city ordinances.

And the City Council next month will consider updating an ordinance regulating real estate signs. The ultimate goal, according to Councilman Mike Gotch, “is to rid this city of a visual blight that is unnecessary and illegal. The less competing, visual chaos we see, the better.”

Real estate signs trumpeting the sales of homes have become common on the San Diego landscape as scores of new subdivisions have sprung up, bringing with them increasingly aggressive competition for prospective buyers. Until recently, there has been little regard for their effect on the city’s visual ambiance. In fact, a city law dictating that no real estate sign be more than 10 feet high or larger than three square feet was rarely enforced.

But in areas experiencing rapid development--like the Interstate 15 corridor and along major streets like Miramar and Friars roads--the myriad signs came to be regarded as an eyesore. So the City Council earlier this summer directed that something be done to clean them up.

Enter Joe Flynn, the city’s sign regulator, and his crew of enforcers.

Flynn’s crews, fanning out into the city several times each week, have confiscated 7,230 illegal real estate signs. Almost all of them were temporary paper or plastic signs, long ago left to ineffectually flutter in the breeze on street corners. But on 258 occasions, Flynn reported to the council’s Transportation and Land Use Committee, the illegal signs were as big as billboards, and required the use of cranes to root them out of the ground. More than 300 of the signs were deemed valuable enough to impound rather than destroy, and developers and real estate sales agents have been showing up at City Hall to pay an impound fee to reclaim their confiscated signs.

“It’s a competitive industry,” Flynn said. “That’s been an impediment to us as we’ve tried to get the signs down.”

The committee, with Gotch and Councilman Bill Mitchell (who said he would like to see real estate signs banned altogether) the leading advocates of the cleanup campaign, discussed the sign controversy for the second time this week, but could not agree on a proposed ordinance to send to the full council.

While council is likely to consider increasing the maximum size of the signs, it wants to clamp down on the proliferation of signs by limiting the number at each intersection.

Mitchell has worked in real estate, but his district includes the exclusive areas of Rancho Bernardo and La Jolla, which through their local planning groups have persuaded the City Council to ban signs on public right-of-ways in their neighborhoods, and restrict those on private property to three square feet.

“It’s understood that you just don’t put up these kind of signs in La Jolla, and with the restriction in Rancho Bernardo, the signs you see there are aesthetic, they look nice,” Mitchell said. “Even still, people manage to sell houses there.”

Flynn, saying that the current regulations are “inadequate for the needs of the industry,” recommended that signs of eight square feet be allowed, but with a six-foot height limit “so they’re not projecting above peoples’ fences.” Flynn also recommended that signs be removed after two years, and that only three signs be allowed on each four-corner intersection.

Gotch and Mitchell lobbied for a limit of six square feet, but when a snag developed over whether signs advertising single-family homes should be smaller, the committee postponed making a decision for two weeks. The message was clear, however. As Mitchell said, “We’re tired of seeing this hodge-podge of illegal signs. We will not tolerate them.”

The two councilmen criticized real estate agents and development firms that have failed to comply with the city laws. “When you look at the numbers we’re talking about, you don’t see a lot of industry cooperation to stop this visual pollution of the city,” Gotch said. “It’s too bad they can’t police their own industry,” Mitchell added.

Paul Vadnais, president-elect of the San Diego Board of Realtors, said the organization did not plan to oppose the war on signs, although he disagreed that his industry has been lax in adhering to city laws.

“We’ve alerted prospective brokers about the change in attitude by the city,” Vadnais said.

“And we agree that temporary signs have no reason to be in the public right-of-way, although you could make the same argument for campaign signs,” he said with a wry chuckle. “I think the majority of real estate offices police their own signs--the primary problem has come from tract developers who have left their signs up almost forever.”

Vadnais and other industry officials said street signs are vital marketing tools in the selling of a house. “They’re very important in getting people to go and see your property,” Vadnais said.

Bill Purdy, who works in the San Diego County regional administration office of Century 21 Realty, said, “Our figures show us that more than 50% of the people who buy our homes are attracted by our signs. That means we get just as much out of our signs as we do all the rest of our advertising, in newspapers and on radio and TV.”

Purdy said a change in size would not pose a problem for his company. “If we had our preference, we would have no regulations,” Purdy said. “But if somebody thinks this will beautify the city, we’re not going to put up a big fight against that.”