L.A. to Charge Billboard Firms Inspection Fees

The City Council set the stage Friday for a crackdown on illegal billboards in Los Angeles by adopting a new law that charges an annual fee for each sign to finance an inventory and inspection program.

Councilman Jack Weiss said the law he wrote will make the billboard industry pay for expanded city efforts to enforce building codes against the 40% of billboards believed to be out of compliance.

“We have a chance today, with this ordinance, to ... take significant action against illegal billboards in this city,” Weiss told his colleagues, before the unanimous vote to adopt the ordinance.

The council launched the program even as some civic activists called for banning all new billboards, while industry officials said they worry that the fee will drive away business.

Mort Allen, a Studio City real estate agent who works with billboard companies, told the council that the fee may hurt an industry that already pays business taxes to the city.

“You are driving business away, including the [film] studios, by saying they can’t advertise their product,” Allen said.

At the same time, anti-billboard activist Gerald Silver of Encino said he hopes the council goes further and adopts a ban on all new billboards.

“It’s a start,” he said about the ordinance adopted Friday.

Council members were shocked last year when, during a debate on allowing new freeway billboards, city Building and Safety Department officials said they did not have an inventory of all existing billboards and could not say with certainty how many are illegal.

Part of the problem was that the city did not dedicate the resources needed to inventory billboards and inspect each one to see if it had a city permit and was the size that the permit allowed.

The fee approved Friday will pay for inspectors to inventory billboards and take enforcement actions. The ordinance also requires billboard companies to provide documentation and a proof of permit when they pay the annual fee.

Once a fee is paid, a certificate will be provided that must be affixed to the billboard, indicating the sign is in compliance. Billboards that do not display the certificates can be targeted by inspectors.

“This will immediately improve our ability to enforce the law and crack down on illegal billboards,” Weiss said.

The fee, which will take effect July 1, will be set after a study determines the cost of the program. An early proposal suggested a fee of about $200 per billboard for a bare-bones program employing 11 inspectors.