Digital billboard debate to continue next month

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

A local planning board decided Tuesday that an ordinance to allow digital billboards needed more tweaking, and voted unanimously to table consideration until its next meeting.
The Chatham County-Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission was considering a text amendment that would allow digital billboards in the city limits, but commissioners felt certain requirements were unclear, such as whether the 5,000-foot minimum distance between signs was linear or as the crow flies.
Commissioners also wanted the sign company that prompted the ordinance, Lamar Outdoor Advertising, to take down more non-digital billboards to compensate for the digital ones the company wanted.
Lamar representatives had offered to take down 24 non-digital billboards, but several commissioners pushed for even more to come down, specifically "non-conforming" billboards, which do not meet ordinance requirements.
City Manager Michael Brown, who sits on the commission, likened it to wetlands mitigation, where a developer must replace wetlands he plans to destroy.
"What we're saying is right now we do not allow digital billboards as a matter of right," Brown said. "We're going to allow them as a matter of right. What we're saying is if someone wants to put in a digital billboard, they can go buy a regular billboard and take it out of service and put in a digital billboard."
Some commissioners said the requirement should be stipulated in the ordinance.
Attorney Harold Yellin, representing Lamar, argued that being forced by ordinance to take down non-conforming signs was essentially a deal breaker.
"Non-confirming could be a sign that when we put it up was perfectly legal, and then a school came in next to us," he said.
Yellin also objected to any stipulations in the ordinance that Lamar remove signs, saying that other companies that don't have signs in Savannah would not have to meet such a requirement.
"I don't think you can require something of Lamar that you can't require of everybody," Yellin said. "You're creating an ordinance that is not universal. It's probably not constitutional."
Some commissioners also wanted the 24 signs Lamar had volunteered to take down stipulated in the ordinance.
"How would there be an assurance that these other signs come down without there being an item in the ordinance?" Commission Chairman Stephen Lufburrow asked.
Yellin said Lamar would sign a contract agreeing to take down the 24 signs.
In the end, the commissioners decided they needed to iron out the details before voting, and tabled the item until their Sept. 18 meeting.

Source: Savannah Morning News