INC NEWS - proposed billboard changes

[Tom Miller]

I see that the billboard industry is asking the city and county to ease up
on the restrictions we worked so hard to get in place all through the 1990s.
The JCCPC has delayed their consideration of the requested ordinance change
so that groups like INC can have their say.

 

We need to say no!

 

They are asking for the UDO to be changed to let them to replace existing
billboards with electronic ones which will allow them to change the
advertisement every few seconds.  To accomplish this, the new signs must be
lighted somehow like big screen TVs.  Oh joy.  That's what we need, drivers
whizzing along watching for the billboard to change instead of the traffic.

 

We worked hard for years to eliminate the billboard blight form our streets
and highways and now we have to fight all over again.

 

The city spent fortunes in court defending its tough new billboard rules and
won at every level.  The billboard industry took the fight to the
legislature and tried to get laws passed which would not only eliminate a
city's power to regulate billboards, but which would also require local
governments to pay every time zoning or other regulations diminished the
value of property.  None of these measures proposed to make the developer
pay when changing regulations enhanced the value of their properties.
Fortunately, none of these proposals passed.  They did succeed in getting
the legislature to end amoratization as a way phasing out unwanted uses.

 

INC fought all these proposals in the General Assembly and organized all
neighborhoods statewide to do join the struggle.  I guess I'm about the only
rat left in the barn who still remembers all this.

 

It's bad enough having to fight to stop this unsightly pollution of our
streets and highways, but as neighborhood representatives, we have to
remember that there is often a neighborhood on the other side of the
billboard that has to contend with the damn thing looming over them too.

 

Durham doesn't allow billboards (like about a dozen states and the
progressive cities in NC).  The existing billboards are all nonconforming
uses under the UDO.  Usually, when a property is nonconforming, the owner
can maintain it like it is, but he can't enhance it.  The billboard
industry's proposal will allow then to "upgrade" their nonconforming
billboards to make them newer, brighter, and more obnoxious.  INC needs to
fight to stop this and right now.

 

Tom Miller

 

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