Opinion ID: 147216
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The City's Sign Regulations

Text: The City regulates signs, including billboards, through Chapter I, Article 4.4 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC). Article 4.4's stated purpose is to promote public safety and welfare by provid[ing] reasonable protection to the visual environment and by ensuring that billboards do not interfere with traffic safety or otherwise endanger public safety. LAMC § 14.4.1. Article 4.4 prohibits some types of billboards and restricts the size, placement, and illumination of others. These appeals arise from First Amendment challenges to certain content-neutral provisions of Article 4.4: the Freeway Facing Sign Ban and the Supergraphic and OffSite Sign Bans.
Article 4.4's Freeway Facing Sign Ban prohibits billboards located within 2,000 feet of and viewed primarily from a freeway or an on-ramp/off-ramp. LAMC § 14.4.6(A). Notwithstanding the Freeway Facing Sign Ban, the City has permitted freeway-facing billboards in some circumstances, two of which are applicable here. [1] First, in 1999, the City adopted an ordinance authorizing billboards near the Staples Center, a state-of-the-art sports and entertainment complex that was developed to eliminate blight and dangerous conditions in downtown Los Angeles. See Los Angeles, Cal., Ordinance No. 172465 (1999). The City asserted that the nature of the Staples Center's use, coupled with its location in the center of a highly urbanized area, required billboards that could effectively communicate event-related information. Id. Today, there are several freeway facing billboards near the Staples Center, including some that use flashing displays and frequently changing digital content. The City made another exception to the Freeway Facing Sign Ban in 2008, when it undertook plans to renovate Santa Monica Boulevard with the aim of improving the flow of traffic between the 405 Freeway and the Beverly Hills border. See Los Angeles, Cal., Ordinance No. 179827 (2008). However, the targeted traffic corridor was home to sixteen billboards, the outright elimination of which might have triggered the City's obligation to compensate the billboards' owners under California's eminent domain law. See Cal. Bus. & Prof.Code § 5412. To avoid the requirements of takings law, including the obligation of just compensation, the City agreed with the billboard owners that four sign faces could be relocated to a newly created special use district (SUD) near Fifteenth Street. While the relocated billboards would face a freeway, the Fifteenth Street SUD resulted in a net reduction of billboards in the City.
Supergraphic billboards are large-format signs projected onto or hung from building walls. See LAMC § 14.4.2. They are often made of large vinyl or mesh canvasses, which are hung with cables from the sides of buildings. Id. Off-site billboards display messages directing attention to a business or product not located on the same premises as the sign itself. Id. For example, a billboard promoting the latest blockbuster movie, but attached to a furniture store, is an off-site sign. The same billboard, when attached to a theater playing the movie, is an on-site sign. Article 4.4 contains the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans, which prohibit these types of billboards. Id. §§ 14.4.4(B)(9), (11). However, the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans exempt signs that are specifically permitted pursuant to a legally adopted specific plan, supplemental use district or an approved development agreement. Id. A specific plan is a land use plan that provides details for the implementation of the City's general land use plan. See id. § 11.5.7(A) (A specific plan shall provide by ordinance regulatory controls or incentives for the systematic execution of the General Plan.); see also Cal. Gov't Code § 65450. A SUD is a land use planning device employed to regulate and restrict the location of certain types of uses whose requirements are difficult to anticipate and cannot adequately be provided for in the City's general zoning plan. LAMC § 12.32(S)(1)(a). Sign districts, like the Fifteenth Street SUD discussed above, are among the recognized types of SUDs. Id. § 13.11. Finally, a development agreement is a mechanism by which the City may provide a developer with certainty that existing rules, policies, and regulations will continue to govern his project once it has been approved. See Cal. Gov't Code § 65864. The Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans do not specify the circumstances under which any of these exceptions may be invoked, but other laws provide that SUDs and development agreements must not conflict with specific plans, which, in turn, must not conflict with the City's general plan. See Cal. Gov't Code § 65454 (specific plans); id. § 65867.5(b) (development agreements); LAMC § 13.11(C) (SUDs). The authority to employ each exception to the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans derives, not from Article 4.4, but from the City's legislative power to control local land use. See Cal. Gov't Code § 65867.5(a) (development agreements); LAMC § 11.5.7(A) (specific plans); id. § 12.32 (land use legislative actions); id. § 13.11(B) (SUDs); Los Angeles, Cal., City Charter § 558 (procedures for adoption of land use ordinance).