
Council panel kills Hogsett’s cap-and-trade idea on digital billboards
The move was a big victory for neighborhood leaders who had been fighting to keep in place the city’s ban on digital billboards.
The move was a big victory for neighborhood leaders who had been fighting to keep in place the city’s ban on digital billboards.
Council Vice President Zach Adamson said “we all have received lots of calls” on the proposal and said postponing the matter would “allow additional conversation” on whether or not to amend the proposal or accept it as written.
Under the proposal, sign owners could convert existing billboards to electronic ones, as long as twice that amount of signage space is removed from the city’s urban core.
City officials say the billboard company GEFT had a unique case that wouldn’t apply to the several other billboard companies that have been hoping to get past the city’s ban on digital billboards.
Local billboard company GEFT Outdoor LLC expects to seek millions of dollars from the city of Indianapolis after a federal judge’s ruling that the city’s former sign ordinance was unconstitutional.
A federal suit filed by a local billboard firm claiming a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision makes the city’s sign ordinance unconstitutional has pushed discussion of another project’s electronic-mesh art display to next year.
If the city council follows the recommendation, anyone seeking to add a digital message board will need council approval and face what’s essentially a rezoning process.
As representatives from the advertising industry, we are proud partners with many businesses that seek new opportunities by advertising on digital billboards. We are equally proud of our participation in the public discussion about digital billboards in Marion County.
Does Indianapolis want the ban on digital billboards to be lifted? It’s hard to tell, since the public has been kept in the dark as billboard companies have been working behind the scenes to win support from city-county councilors for years.
Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness recently created a task force to study electronic outdoor advertising and make a recommendation to the city on how to proceed with inquiries for digital signage.
After three hours of discussion, a controversial proposal to lift Marion County’s ban on digital billboards was postponed without a vote Monday night.
The City-County Council is scheduled Dec. 1 to weigh a resolution that lifts the city’s ban on digital billboards and allows as many 75 in the city over three years. Opponents are rallying against what they consider visual blight.
The city should put another bargaining chip on the table: revenue.
Clear Channel Outdoor, which owns most of the billboards within city limits, has lined up two city-county councilors to sponsor a bill that would loosen a decade-old ban on digital billboards.
[In the Jan. 4 issue], IBJ covered the State Fair board’s decision to permit a digital billboard at the
Fairgrounds on Fall Creek Parkway. One of the opening lines, “Take that, Indianapolis” in the article was apt.
Clear Channel Outdoor is building Marion County’s first full-size digital billboard along Fall Creek Parkway on the
grounds of the Indiana State Fair. The first message might as well be: Take that, Indianapolis!
Remote-controlled digital billboards are revolutionizing the outdoor advertising industry nationwide, but a city prohibition
against the medium is preventing a rollout here.