Agenda - Planning Commission - 05/01/2008

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Looking Ahead: Regulating Digital Signs and Billboards . By Marya Morris, AICP Cities and counties have always been challenged to keep their sign ordinances updated to address the latest in sign types and technologies. Each new sign type that has come into use- for example, backlit awnings and electronic message centers-has prompted cities to amend their regulations in response to or in anticipation of an application to install such a sign. The advent in the last several years of signs using digital video displays represents the latest, and perhaps the most compelling, challenge to cities trying to keep pace with signage technology. More so than any other type of sign technology that has come into use in the last 40 to 50 years, digital video displays on both off-premise (Le., billboards) and on-premise signs raise very significant traffic safety considerations. This issue of Zoning Practice covers cur- rent trends in the use of digital technolo.gy on off-premise billboards and on-premise signs. It recaps the latest research on the effects of this type of changeable signage on traffic safety. It also discusses the use of digital video sign technology as a component of on- premise signs, including a list of ordinance provisions that municipalities should consider if they are going to permit this type of sign to be used. I use the phrase digital display Dr video display, but these devices are also referred to as LEDs or, collectively, as "dynamic signs." BRIGHT BILLBOARDS While digital technology is growing in use for on-premise signs, it is the proliferation of digi- tal billboards that has triggered cities and counties to revise their sign ordinances to address this new type of display. Of the approximately half-million billboards currently lining u.s. roadways, only about 500 of them are digital. However, the industry's trade group, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, expects that number to grow by sev- eral hundred each year in the coming years. In 2008, digital billboards represent forthe sign industry what the Comstock Lode must have r6lpresented for silver miners in 18s8-seem- ingly limitless riches. The technology allows companies to rent a single billboard-or pole-to multiple advertisers. A billboard 'company in San Antonio, for example, esti- mated that annual revenue from one billboard that had been converted from a static image to a changeable digital image would increase tenfold, from $300,000 to $3 million just one year after it went digital. It is very difficult for cities and counties to get billboards removed once they are in place. Billboard companies have made a con- certed effort to get state legislation passed that limits or precludes the ability of local 44 ZONING PRACTICE 4.08 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION I page 2