Council Moves to Put New Curbs on Billboards in City

The Los Angeles City Council tentatively adopted rules Tuesday designed to slow the proliferation of billboards and reduce the size of merchants’ signs on buildings.

However, a group of homeowner associations, architects and beautification advocates protested that the new rules are too weak to stop the spread of the “billboard jungle.” The group said its members will start an initiative campaign to ban new billboards altogether.

Brian Moore, president of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., said the anti-sign group represents more than 60 homeowner associations, the Los Angeles Beautiful and the Los Angeles chapters of the American Institute of Architects and the America Society of Landscape Architects.

Look to 1987 Ballot

Moore said the group, called the Citizens Sign Control Committee, will begin gathering signatures with the intent of putting a billboard ban on the April, 1987, city ballot.

He said members of the anti-sign group would have gone along with the new rules if the council had prohibited construction of cantilevered billboards, the kind suspended from large poles on rooftops and elsewhere.

At the urging of sign opponents, the Los Angeles Planning Commission added a prohibition on cantilevered billboards when it considered the new rules in April.

But the council’s Planning and Environment Committee removed that provision earlier this month when representatives of the billboard industry argued that it would eliminate about 85% of their future business.

On Tuesday, the council voted 11 to 3 against a motion by Councilman Marvin Braude to adopt the ban on cantilevered billboards.

Voting with Braude were members Joy Picus and Ernani Bernardi. All three represent areas of the San Fernando Valley.

Bernardi and Picus then joined a 13-1 majority in favor of two ordinances, one for signs and the other for billboards.

Although voting for the new rules, Bernardi said they showed that the council is “not up to serious sign control.”

Voting Procedure

Because its vote was not unanimous, the council will have to vote again on the ordinances next week. They would take effect 30 days later if signed by Mayor Tom Bradley.

Under the new rules, billboards could not be larger than 800 square feet or be displayed higher than 42 feet from the ground and would not be allowed within 200 feet of areas zoned for homes. The rules would also set a limit of four billboards per intersection and require spacing varying from 100 to 300 feet, depending on the size.

Presently, no rules govern billboards or signs, other than a mildly restrictive temporary measure that expires in July.

Mercantile signs wold be limited to a total size equal to four square feet for each foot of building front. A complex formula would provide how that allowed area could be divided between signs on poles or those projecting from the building.

A city planning official said that further ordinances establishing sign fees and an enforcement staff are being devised to ensure that the rules are obeyed.

“I predict that six months after this goes into effect, we’re going to see a new look in the City of Los Angeles,” said Councilman Howard Finn, who helped draft the rules.

Finn said the enforcement would result in the dismantling of many signs that have been constructed without the required permits.

The new ordinances will not affect present billboards and signs built under permit.