[Durham INC] BILLBOARD HEARING!

[Tom Miller]

Dear Neighborhood Advocate:

 

Help INC beat the Billboard Proposal!

 

Attend the Planning Commission Meeting - 5:30 p.m., April 13th, Durham City
Hall (101 City Hall Plaza)

 

On Tuesday night, the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the
billboard industry's request to loosen Durham's billboard rules.  They want
to be able to upgrade old billboards and relocate them to new positions
along Interstate-85, Hwy 147, US 15-501, and other streets. The industry's
proposed changes would allow up to five billboards a mile along the targeted
streets and highways.  Billboards could be located as close as 200 feet to a
residence!  Many of the upgraded and relocated signs will be the brightly
lit digital variety that flashes a new message every eight seconds. Please
help stop this bad idea!

 

Durham banned new billboards back in 1980s.  Half of the billboards standing
when the ban went into effect have come down - and those that remain are on
borrowed time.  If they are seriously damaged or taken by highway widening,
they cannot be replaced.  Because of the ban, no billboards can go up in
Durham today.  If the billboard industry lobbyists get their way, however,
neighborhoods near the target streets and highways will fall under a new
"Billboard Overlay Zone."  Especially vulnerable will be East Durham, Crest
Street, Morehead Hill, Northgate Park, Walltown, Duke Forest, Carver Street,
Duke Homestead, Old West Durham, Duke Park, Tuscaloosa-Lakewood,
Watts-Hillandale, and at least a dozen more.  No one in Durham should be
condemned to look at a giant sign on a steel mast flashing advertisements
day and night!  No one in Durham should have the value of his or her home
wrecked by a billboard 200, 300, or even 500 feet away!

 

Absolutely no one!

 

Please help!

 

1.  Attend the public hearing tomorrow, April 13!  A big crowd is the most
powerful argument we can present!

 

2.  Write a brief, polite, but unequivocal e-mail to all the members of the
Planning Commission, the City Council, and the Board of County Commissioners
telling them that you support Durham's ban on billboards. You can e-mail all
the members of the Planning Commission at durhamplanningcommission@
durhamnc.gov.  You can write to the city council at council at durhamnc.gov.

Write to all of the County Commissioners at
commissioners at durhamcountync.gov.  

 

Tom Miller,

INC President

 

 

 

 

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