Opinion ID: 3035963
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Design review provision

Text: [15] Section 47.06.200(5) allows City officials, during the permitting process, to review signs for “clarity and readability.” Plaintiffs suggest that this provision allows City officials to prefer certain speech and regulate all messages on the basis of content. The City counters by offering a limiting construction, asserting that clarity and readability refer only to legibility and not intelligibility. G.K. Ltd. Travel I, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6984 at . Without the City’s construction, the provision would be suspect; however, we consider the City’s limiting construction reasonable. See Village of Hoffman Estates 1122 G.K. LTD. TRAVEL v. CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 494 n.5 (1982) (“In evaluating a facial challenge to a state law, a federal court must, of course, consider any limiting construction that a state court or enforcement agency has proffered.”). Review for legibility entails, for example, an official reading a sign to ensure that its text is visible from streets so as not to distract passing motorists. Legibility review does not allow the City to regulate the substance of the message contained in a sign. We hold that the design review provision, as limited by the City’s construction, is content neutral.