INC NEWS - flashing, changing, bright, electronic, new, improved, special treatment billboards

[Kelly Jarrett]

Well said. And thank you, Tom, for providing us some history on this. I 
am a bit disappointed to see INC being used by the industry as a vehicle 
for overturning the hard-won struggle you've described below (which the 
INC of its day led). I am also disappointed to see an INC meeting where 
an industry representative presents a case for electronic billboards as 
a neutral forum. At the very least, there should be a speaker who can 
put the pro-billboard issue in the kind of historical context you've 
provided below and who can outline some of the negative impacts and 
implications of the proposal.

It is naive to think that these billboard will be more effective at 
attracting people to Durham--flashing ads for McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and 
the XXX-Adult Emporium--than the kind of press we've been getting lately 
in national publications promoting us as a hot spot for foodies, a great 
place to retire, one of the countries up-and-coming downtown 
neighborhoods, etc--things that promote Durham itself..



Tom Miller wrote:
>
> I for one am against what the billboard people are asking for, i.e., 
> special treatment for a non-conforming use.  As a community, we 
> decided that Durham would be a billboard-free zone and we adopted 
> zoning regulations to prevent new ones from going up.  Those rules 
> also required the old ones to come down at the end of their useful 
> life (amortization).  The billboard industry fought like tigers 
> against Durham in court, but Durham won.  As a result, a lot of 
> billboards came down over time.  Then the billboard industry got a 
> bill passed to stop amortization as a way of getting rid of unwanted 
> uses and the remaining billboards got to stay as nonconforming uses.  
> Under the law, the owner of a nonconforming use can keep it and can 
> even keep it repaired.  He loses it if it's destroyed or if he lets it 
> go for a period of time.  The one thing he can't do is increase it, 
> improve it, or make it bigger or better.  So if my garage was legal 
> when it was built, but is now too close to my neighbor's property line 
> under the UDO, I can keep it.  I can paint it.  I can put a new roof 
> on it.  But I can't add on to it.  I can't replace it with a new one.  
> Why is the billboard industry so special that they get a bye on the 
> rules we ordinary citizens have to follow and which we ordinary 
> citizens count on to protect us?
>
>  
>
> These are the same people, the exact same people, who did everything 
> they could to make downzoning illegal in NC.  They fought us for years 
> in the legislature.  By us I mean INC.  Once upon a time INC kept a 
> mailing list of hundreds of neighborhood organizations across the 
> state.  We hosted a couple of meetings with neighborhood groups from 
> other cities, like Raleigh, Henderson, Chapel Hill, and 
> Winston-Salem.  Throughout the 80s and 90s when the inevitable 
> billboard bill would be introduced in each session of the General 
> Assembly, we would work with the League of Municipalities and 
> environmental groups to stop or blunt the billboard industry's hateful 
> legislation.  INC mailed out hundreds of letters informing and 
> enlisting neighborhoods all over the state to help in the fight.  We 
> were pretty successful too.
>
>  
>
> These are the same people who used litigation as a stalling tactic 
> every time our zoning rules required them to take down a billboard.  
> It cost the city thousands of dollars in legal resources, but I'll 
> hand it to the city attorney's office, they didn't give up and they 
> didn't lose.  That's when the billboard people, one of which was the 
> predecessor of the very firm making Tuesday night's presentation, 
> attacked the amortization tool in the legislature.  We, again I mean 
> INC, fought against them.  Eventually, however, they got their way.
>
>  
>
> Now they're still not satisfied.  They have a new product which even 
> they say is the advertising we can't "choose to see", but "have to 
> see" and they want special treatment in our zoning ordinance to put it 
> up and make us look at it.  Well in Durham, we have a choice.
>
>  
>
> I am against it.  I would even be against it if what they wanted was 
> to put up one new improved and flashing billboard up in someone else's 
> neighborhood and pay me $500,000 to sit by while they did it.
>
>  
>
> No one should get to replace a nonconforming use with another 
> nonconformity.  When Durham decided to be a billboard-free zone, INC 
> was part of that decision.  Flashing or just flashy versions of the 
> thing we worked so hard to get rid of won't convince me to go along 
> with any proposal that replaces old billboards with new ones or which 
> treats the billboard industry as a special case.
>
>  
>
> Tom Miller
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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