Ban Billboard Blight Protecting the visual environment of Los Angeles

Architect's rendering of Hollywood development with supergraphic signs

After hearing warnings that a ban on supergraphic signs in Hollywood could have such dire consequences as stopping new development and forcing businesses to close their doors, the City Planning Commission Thursday directed the planning department to come back next month with more details on why the ban proposed by City Council President Eric Garcetti is needed and what potential effects it might have.

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Posted under Billboards, City Planning Commission, L.A. City Government, Supergraphic Signs

View of supergraphic sign on Metropolitan Hotel apartment project above Hollywood freeway. Sign simulation by Skytag, Inc.

L.A. City Councilman Eric Garcetti’s proposal to ban new supergraphic signs in the Hollywood sign district would exempt a total of 31,000 sq. ft. of the signage that has won some form of city approval, but hasn’t been issued permits by the city building department.  Included is a 5,700 sq. ft. sign that would cover many of the windows on a 12-story apartment building clearly visible from the nearby Hollywood freeway.

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Posted under Billboards, CRA, City Planning Commission, L.A. City Government, L.A. Live, Outdoor Advertising, Skytag, Supergraphic Signs, Trutanich

New signs like these on Sunset & Vine tower would be banned under Garcetti proposal

Multi-story supergraphic signs advertising everything from movies to liquor to women’s clothing have proliferated throughout Hollywood in the past half dozen years, but L.A. City Council president Eric Garcetti is now calling for a ban on the approval of any more of the signs in the Hollywood Sign district.  In a motion to be voted on by the City Council this coming Tuesday,  Garcetti cited “community concern” and “ongoing legal questions about the appropriateness of supergraphic signs…”

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Posted under Billboards, City Planning Commission, Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, L.A. City Government, Outdoor Advertising, Supergraphic Signs

Mural permitted through Portland's public art easement program

The legal black hole into which public art murals have fallen is a source of frustration and even anger for L.A. artists, art organizations, and politicians in areas where murals are significant elements of cultural history and objects of community pride.  Sometimes called the mural capital of the world, the city is rapidly losing that distinction to such cities as Philadelphia, which have thriving public programs to encourage new murals and preserve and restore existing ones endangered by ravages of weather and vandalism.

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Posted under Billboards, City Planning Commission, L.A. City Government, Regency Outdoor, Supergraphic Signs

Sign for businesses at L.A. mini-mall. Proposed sign ordinance would limit digital conversion of such signs.

Is it foolish to expect a business publication to produce an objective, in-depth article on sign regulations that are opposed by members of the business community?  Or is such an idea, in an age when the line between advocacy and reportage seems increasingly blurred, hopelessly outdated?

The article in point, “Stop Sign,” in the May 31 issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal, concerns a new sign ordinance that would prohibit all digital signs outside sign districts, and reduce the allowable number and size of new “on-site” or business signs.  The ordinance was approved last year by the City Planning Commission, but hasn’t been acted upon by the City Council. Read More…

Posted under Advertising, City Planning Commission, L.A. City Government

Two supergraphics protected by federal court injunctions issued in 2008, but lifted by the appeals court ruling. Left, sign by Skytag, Inc.; right, by World Wide Rush

Does yesterday’s decision by the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the city’s right to ban off-site, supergraphic, and freeway-facing advertising signs mean that impresarios of blight like Barry Rush of World Wide Rush and Michael McNeilly of Skytag, Inc. will be packing up their multi-story building wraps and heading out of town?  To shed some light on that question, and other issues relevant to yesterday’s eagerly-awaited court ruling, we conducted the following Q&A with ourselves.

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Posted under Billboards, City Planning Commission, Michael McNeilly, Skytag, Supergraphics, World Wide Rush

Good:  L.A. Superior Court Judge Terry Green isn’t an expert on toxic substances, but he performed an expert analysis on the city’s noxious 2006 lawsuit settlement that allowed Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor to put up 840 digital billboards by declaring the agreement that denied the public any voice “poison” and sending it to the shredder.

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Posted under Billboards, CBS Outdoor, City Planning Commission, Clear Channel, Digital Billboards, Freeway Billboards, L.A. City Government, Lamar Advertising, Michael McNeilly, Supergraphics, Van Wagner, World Wide Rush

Our friends at Curbed LA reported last week that the developer of a Hollywood apartment building may go to court if the city refuses to issue permits for two multi-story supergraphic signs that are currently prohibited by city ordinance.  [Hollywood Developer Fights to Keep Its Supergraphics].   Because the signs were approved by the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and the city planning department prior to passage of the ordinance last month, the developer, DS Ventures, is claiming a “vested right” to the signs.

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Posted under Billboards, CRA, City Planning Commission, L.A. City Government, Supergraphics, Uncategorized