Craven commissioners adopt billboard restrictions

July 12, 2007

New Bern, North Carolina

Craven Commissioners passed an ordinance regulating off-premise signs Thursday, an ordinance outdoor advertisers said spells the ultimate end of billboards in the county. The ordinance became effective with passage. It ends a moratorium on new billboards in effect since Feb. 19, but industry spokesmen said following the meeting that they were disappointed. “The whole purpose of this was supposed to be curtailing the proliferation of billboards,” said Mark O’Dell, vice president of Lamar Advertising. “It morphed into a virtual elimination of billboards. It’s not going to happen in five to 10 years but it will eventually.” “I don’t think they understand the significance of what they’ve done,” said Mark Russell of NextMedia Outdoor Inc., who said the ordinance fails to protect the assets here which are used by local business and generate business and tax revenue. Planning Director Don Baumgardner said the ordinance is not intended to ban billboards. But it has some of the most restrictive rules spacing between new billboards of any in the 46 states which allow them at all. There will have to be 2,500 feet, almost a half mile, between signs. Maine, Vermont, Hawaii and Alaska prohibit billboards. Baumgardner said, however, that 71 of the 100 billboards in Craven County do not conform to the new ordinance. If those signs are damaged, the ordinance prevents them from being repaired if repair costs are more than 50 percent of the sign’s total value. A GPS reading done by county planning staff shows the spacing requirement will prevent additional new signs on the U.S. 70 East corridor, Baumgardner said. Recent proliferation of signs on that corridor is what prompted county officials to consider a billboard ordinance. The ommissioners decided not to ban electronic billboards with changeable copy and non-moving pictures after reviewing a study released by Virginia Tech July 10 provided by outdoor advertisers. It supports thinking that such signs are not driving hazards. The ordinance does ban animated signs and billboards on top of buildings. It allows signs up to 40 feet above the crown of the highway and at least 20 feet from the right-of-way. The signs can be as large as 378 square feet and have an extension of as much as 10 percent, so long as they are at least 200 feet from the radius of a schools, parks forests and bridges. The ordinance is available at planning board and county manager offices.

Source: Sun Journal- by Sue Book