Diluted Sign Bill Unveiled; Homeowners Not Satisfied

Los Angeles officials Thursday unveiled a watered-down sign ordinance for Ventura Boulevard in Encino, but a leader of one homeowners group complained that it would not improve the community’s “honky-tonk Las Vegas” appearance.

The Planning Commission, which had been scheduled to vote on the revised ordinance Thursday, postponed action until Aug. 22 to give members time to consider last-minute changes by the city attorney’s office.

The most controversial of the changes would permit erection of new billboards, although they would be limited to a fraction of the size of the 37 existing billboards along the affluent community’s stretch of Ventura Boulevard.

Earlier Proposals

Three earlier drafts of the proposed ordinance, all prepared by city planners, would have banned all new billboards. There have been no proposals to remove existing billboards, which are protected by state law.

Leaders of Homeowners of Encino, who for six years have been lobbying for a sign law and had enthusiastically supported the earlier drafts, said they will fight the latest proposal unless the billboard ban is reinstated.

“We are going to ask the commission to put the ban back in,” said Gerald Silver, president of the homeowners group. “Without it, we will continue to look more and more like a honky-tonk Las Vegas area.”

Vow to Seek Ban

Homeowner leaders from the nearby Ventura Boulevard communities of Sherman Oaks and Tarzana, who are hoping that Encino will lead the way for their communities in banning billboards, also expressed disappointment at the revisions and vowed to lobby for the billboard ban.

After Planning Commission review, the issue will go to a City Council committee and, finally, to the full council.

Spokesmen for the billboard industry have opposed all proposals to regulate signs on Ventura Boulevard.

Deputy City Atty. Jolaine Harkless, who helped draft the ordinance, said the ban on billboards was deleted “because we thought it was violative of court decisions on this subject,” particularly a 1981 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning parts of a San Diego sign ordinance.

She acknowledged, however, that attorneys for other cities have not interpreted the decision in the San Diego case as preventing local governments from banning erection of billboards.

Harkless also said other provisions of the revised ordinance, particularly a ban on rooftop signs, would “accomplish much of what proponents wanted.”

Widespread Effect

Although the revised ordinance would not ban new billboards, it retains sections of earlier drafts that would eventually force removal of 40% of the 1,500 signs along the boulevard in Encino, city planner Marcus Woersching said.

Besides retaining the ban on rooftop signs, the draft approved by the city attorney’s office retains provisions allowing no more than two signs on most buildings and outlawing window signs covering more than 25% of the glass.

Portable signs on sidewalks in front of buildings, so-called “sandwich signs,” would also be illegal, as would the banners and pennants used by many car lots.

Signs that flash, blink or rotate--except those indicating time, news or temperature--would also be banned.

Free-standing on-site signs, including the pole signs in front of many businesses, would be limited to between 12 and 20 feet in height, depending on boulevard frontage.

5-Year Provision

Owners would be forced to remove nonconforming signs within five years. Woersching said about 600 signs would be eliminated.

Although the ban on new billboards was removed by the city attorney’s office, the revised ordinance limits them to 75 square feet.

Existing billboards vary from 330 to 1,200 square feet, Woersching said.

City Councilman Marvin Braude, who represents Encino and who proposed the ordinance, supports the revised ordinance as being “as close to an ordinance eliminating billboards as we can get,” according to Cindy Miscikowski, Braude’s chief deputy.

Miscikowski said Braude’s “main goal is to get an ordinance in Encino, and then we can go right down the boulevard applying it to other communities.”