INC NEWS - proposed billboard changes

[Pat Carstensen]

This site answers the question about relative energy consumption of electronic and standard billboards (short answer: LEDs save energy in your house, but definitely NOT on a billboard.)  It also shows how much more the billboard companies make out of them:

http://www.sceniccolorado.org/articles/billboard-mythology/

And this is the story on the boards in LA:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96875271

Regards, pat

From: simplelist at gmail.com
To: tom-miller1 at nc.rr.com; inc-list at rtpnet.org
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:06:18 -0500
CC: whhna_board at googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: INC NEWS - proposed billboard changes












Can any pressure on the energy companies be placed to 
gain input or support from them regarding this issue? I would like to know their 
stance on this as well as issues relating to energy conservation, 
etc.
 
--Skip

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: 
  Tom 
  Miller 
  To: inc-list at rtpnet.org 
  Cc: whhna_board at googlegroups.com 
  
  Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2008 2:07 
  PM
  Subject: INC NEWS - proposed billboard 
  changes
  

  
  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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