Anaheim : Council Moves to OK Freeway Billboards

The City Council on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to an ordinance that would allow billboards along the city’s four freeways, which have been free of the signs since the 1960s.

The ordinance, proposed by Regency Outdoor Advertising Inc., relaxes many regulations included in a billboard ordinance rejected by the council last year.

Council members Miriam Kaywood and Lew Overholt voted against the plan. Kaywood said freeway billboards are “blight.” Overholt said he does not want to consider action until the billboard industry is unified on a proposal.

Foster and Kleiser, a Metromedia Co. subsidiary that owns 84 of the city’s 200 billboards, opposes the Regency proposal because it would reduce billboards at intersections, increase the business license fee and reverse an agreement reached in the 1960s, when billboard companies took down freeway billboards in exchange for new signs on Anaheim streets.

Attorney Floyd Farano, who represents Regency, argued Tuesday that the proposed ordinance would bring the city as much as $72,000 in new revenue.

Billboard companies now pay $100 per year regardless of the number or size of signs. Regency’s proposal calls for 25 cents per square foot for inner-city billboards and $1 per square foot for freeway billboards. For Foster and Kleiser, that would mean an annual fee increase from $100 to about $7,000, spokesman Ron Cipriani said.

If approved, the ordinance would open the way for billboards along the Santa Ana, Orange, Costa Mesa and Riverside freeways in Anaheim.

Kaywood said she is interested only in the aesthetic aspect of the plan. Last year’s plan called for a reduction of inner-city billboards from eight to four per intersection. Regency proposes to reduce billboards from eight to six per intersection. Annika Santalahti, city assistant zoning director, said few of the city’s intersections currently have eight billboards.