Prune the Billboard Forest

The jacaranda trees are blooming in Sycamore Grove Park, casting a serene lavender shadow on the green playing fields. But head south from Highland Park along Figueroa Street, as thousands of commuters and schoolkids do daily, and suddenly you can’t see the urban forest for the billboards. Perched atop buildings, and even sprouting from front lawns, in-your-face ads hawk fast food and beer in Spanish and in English.

That local officials have let outdoor ads junk up the skyline is beyond obvious. Undoing the damage to our natural beauty will be a long, slow process. But after months of negotiation over a deeply flawed proposal that would produce little visual improvement, the Los Angeles City Council may be moving in a positive direction.

On Tuesday, the council could take up a substitute motion that would give the city real muscle to tear down or pare down illegal billboards and keep new ones from being erected.

Introduced by members Cindy Miscikowski and Mike Feuer, the motion is far stronger than the tepid limits that industry lobbyists have tried to foist on the council in recent months.

In the first place, the new plan would tackle the huge problem of illegal billboards. Building and Safety Department officials estimate that 40% of the 10,000 or so billboards in the city violate city codes. Companies may have sneaked signs up without getting permits or illegally enlarged or reoriented them; no one in City Hall knows who has done what or the numbers involved. Miscikowski’s and Feuer’s motion would end the mystery by making billboard companies produce a permit for every sign.

The motion would also require that all signs have a good coat of paint and be free of graffiti. By levying a yearly billboard registration fee, as other cities do, Los Angeles could finally fund the additional inspectors needed to ensure compliance.

Meanwhile, the motion would extend a temporary moratorium on the erection of new signs. It would also send planners back to rethink the details of an ill-conceived exchange plan under which sign companies, if they removed some billboards on city streets, would get to erect giant new signs along freeway routes that have been off-limits for 50 years.

The new proposal is a vast improvement over the old, and the council should embrace it. Those members who remain unconvinced might go to the intersection of Pico and Sawtelle boulevards in West Los Angeles and take a quick poll. How many passing voters are happy to see no fewer than nine hulking billboards looming overhead?