UPDATE: The Metropolitan Development Commission overturned the billboard approval, and the
city now is looking into whether the existing sign is legal.
The city's planning staff is challenging a Board of Zoning Appeals decision to allow an electronic billboard at 86th Street and River Road. The zoning board approved the Lamar Advertising request by a 3-2 vote, despite an explicit countywide ban on the signs borne of concerns about driver distraction. Lamar wants to replace the western-facing portion of the sign, which now rotates three ads, with a digital display that updates every 15 seconds.
The Metropolitan Development Commission is scheduled to consider the appeal at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. To earn a variance, Lamar has to show that the move would not be injurious to public health, that it would not adversely affect nearby property values and that strict application of zoning rules would result in "practical difficulties in the use of the property." Essentially, Lamar's hardship argument boils down to it wants an already profitable sign to be more profitable. They also have committed to no motion or flashing. "We ought to be able to have the right to do it," said local land-use attorney Thomas Michael Quinn, who represents Lamar. "All the surrounding counties (including Hamilton and Johnson) allow it." Lamar is expected to file suit if the MDC overturns the variance.
Back to Top
IBJ Conversations
25 Comments
Add Comment
- David Ogilvy
Confessions of an Advertising Man, Atheneum, NY 1988
A billboard lovely as a tree
Indeed, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never aee a tree at all
Ogden Nash, 1937
So here, the tacky tri-vision billboard is there already (how did that happen?) and now they want to class it up? How about just taking the whole thing down and building up some good karma for the next billboard end-run? I guess that's so much to ask.
I think the arguments that it should be OK because other counties, banks, schools, churches have pimped out their neighborhoods is the wrong approach. That is essentially arguing that two wrongs make a right, and that's a slippery slope.
At least they look better than the tri-vision billboards.
And please! Can we get someone to actually care about all those productivity-enhancing gadgets people fool with in their car? We need to make sure those aren't accessible to the people who bought them. I SHOULD BE GUARANTEED SAFETY! The world should look just like my perfect, omnipotent vision. And if the other people don't like it? Well, I hear IMPD has the means to make them see otherwise....
You anti-Billboard types need to go back to your cornfields. A city is a geographical area that has many hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of lots of land with different owners with different needs and different situations. Advertising is a service that almost all people consume, or there would be no market for billboards. And there just happens to be people willing to sell land to advertisers to erect billboards. And guess what, we have a common law principle in our courts called Coming to the Nuisance. It says that if a new use causes a reasonable nuisance to any adjoining prior use, then the prior use has the right to ask for an injunction against said new use. It would very well for hundreds of years in Britain, in the Colonies, and in pre-1920's America. It's a solution that requires the government initiate no force against innocent parties, and protects property rights. And it doesn't need to come up with new rights or new forms of pollution to justify it.
You may not see a need for advertisements on bulletins within city limits, but you are not a business owner apparently. If I could advertise cost efficiently on a bulletin in a high traffic area, I would be all over it. Highway signs are good for making sure that travelers have knowledge of available amenities, but city signs are just as valuable for making known the services that are available in the area that every driver might not know about.
How can the stores in the area compete with a glowing sign 14h x 48w
I just read where the Federal Highway Adminisration is studying their saftey.
It is clear (well, to me anyway) that a changeable internally-illuminated LED billboard is a different animal than a paper or vinyl billboard that is externally illuminated...just as a TV is a different animal than a picture or poster. The polity has an inherent right to define whether a new and different thing constitutes a nuisance and the circumstances under which such a determination applies. What you are witnessing is the messy process of sorting out the competing claims as law and policy are defined.
A court must wait for the law or regulation to be made legislatively or administratively before adjudicating it; I have no doubt that this (or some other LED billboard action) will ultimately end up in court just as the Indianapolis case against Pinnacle did. Then, and only then, will your doctrine be judged applicable to this case. By a judge.
In the meantime, we'll continue to argue about it here...
You wouldn't happen to work for Lamar, would you?