To Live and Sign in LA

“Signs, signs, everywhere the signs, blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind. Do this, don’t do that—can’t you read the signs?” That 1971 rock ditty from the Five Man Electrical Band might well be the anthem of many members of the Los Angeles planning commission and city council, given their recent and what some might call draconian measures against large outdoor signage.

In a March 26, 2009 Los Angeles Daily News article, staff writer Rick Orlov reported on the proposed measure to “ban digital signboards, establish no-sign districts and impose hefty fines on illegal signs. But it would also establish sign districts in commercial areas, where a more intense use of billboards would be allowed.”

The same article quoted planning commissioner Sean Burton as remarking, “We’re prohibiting digital signs, off-site signs and supergraphics in more than 99 percent of the city. The one percent left is most in intensely urban areas.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, the vote by the Los Angeles City Council on the new sign ordinance, originally scheduled for May 26, was postponed an additional three months. This is to allow the new City Attorney-elect Carmen Trutanich, who does not take office until July 1, to review the proposed ordinance.

To put it mildly, the proposals have not gone over well with the California Sign Association, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and many other groups. Editorial writers have weighed in with their own thoughts, among them the Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, who noted “billboards and supergraphics, if properly conceived and regulated, can add life and spirit to the cityscape.”

According to Jeff Aran, government affairs director with the California Sign Association, the ordinance currently pending bans any new billboards, digital signs and supergraphics in “a wholesale rewrite of the sign ordinance.”

The ordinance was the result of the Los Angeles planning commission working at the behest of the city council to whip together legislation in January, February, and March, Aran says with obvious irritation. “At every meeting of the plan commission, there was opposition, not only from the sign industry, but from anti-billboard people who didn’t feel they had enough time to review the proposal,” he reports.

“Los Angeles has 15 city council people and 89 neighborhood groups. Even the former planning director for the city spoke in opposition of the draft, because she thought it wasn’t done right. The whole community has got its fingers in this pie, and no one’s happy about the outcome. Unlike other communities, where you have meetings with affected parties and dialog on an issue, LA basically closed us out.”

As it stood in mid-April, Aran says, a ban is in place on any new billboards, digital signage, and supergraphics. It is being enforced by the aforementioned moratorium in place through mid-June and then renewable, while the new ordinance is being drafted.

But the actions in Los Angeles go beyond billboards, digital signage and supergraphics, notes David Hickey, director of government relations with Alexandria, VA-based International Sign Association. Not only is the moratorium affecting all new digital billboards, traditional billboards and supergraphics covering billboards, it also restricts pole signs to shorter heights, reduces the square area of sign faces, and proposes a ban on all new on-premise digital signs.

“The size and height restrictions I mentioned are for new signs,” Hickey says. “All existing signs will be grandfathered in, unless they need some significant structural alterations, in which case they will be considered nonconforming signs under the new code, and will be forced to be brought into compliance under the new code.”