There will soon be fewer billboards in Houston. This is a good thing.
Clear Channel Outdoor Inc., one of the largest outdoor advertising companies in Houston soon will begin removing more than 800 of its small and mid-size billboards across the city, officials said Monday.
The agreement to remove about two-thirds of Clear Channel’s 1,347 small and medium-sized billboards from private property is expected to end two decades of litigation with the city and speed the elimination of signs that were slated to come down in 2013 anyway, company and city officials said.
City officials estimate there are about 4,000 billboards in Houston and just outside its boundaries. Removing them has been a hotly contested battled since the city adopted an ordinance to regulate them in 1980.
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The agreement with Clear Channel settles a 1987 lawsuit challenging the city’s sign ordinance.
The agreement, which is effective for 20 years, is not intended to stop outdoor advertising, but to make less clutter, said Andy Icken, deputy director of the city’s Department of Public Works and Engineering.
Icken, who helped develop the agreement, said many of the signs to be removed are in residential areas.
“The city hopes to see better-placed signs,” he said, “and to avoid the visual blight that particularly litters several neighborhoods.”
The agreement calls for all of the firm’s 6-by-12-foot signs and 39 percent of its 12-by-20-foot billboards to be removed within 180 days of the date the agreement becomes effective.
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The city’s 1980 ordinance requires that all but about 180 of the smaller billboards covered in the agreement be removed in 2013 anyway, said Jonathan Day, a board member of Scenic Houston, a beautification group.
The settlement, Day said, will allow Clear Channel to remove them early in exchange for the right to relocate others.
“It causes us to oppose the agreement,” he said.
Day said neighborhoods which now may have no signs, could suddenly be faced with billboards.
Icken said the agreement eliminates the small billboards quicker than the city’s sign ordinance does. It allows relocation of the remaining signs to better manage visual space without curtailing business.
“The agreement, we believe, addresses the needs of the entire community,” Icken said.
Back when I lived near Montrose and West Dallas in the mid-90s, there was a billboard just south of that corner – I forget if it was on the property of the Chevron station or right next to it, but whatever the case, it was visible to southbound traffic. One time it advertised the appearance of a pr0n star at a nearby adult bookstore – the ad, along with a picture of the performer, remained for months after the date of the scheduled appearance. I couldn’t tell you when that billboard ceased to operate, but I’ll bet the nice people living in all those shiny new Perry townhomes nearby are glad it’s not there any more. I know I would be.
As for Jonathan Day’s complaint, it would be nice to know where exactly Clear Channel is allowed to relocate those boards to. Andy Icken says “they cannot be placed in the city’s scenic districts, such as along Allen Parkway or downtown”, but it’s not clear to me what that does and does not cover. I think on balance it’s better to get 800 billboards removed now even if 180 that would have been taken down in 2013 can move elsewhere and thus live on, but I’d like to know what that means in practice before I say for sure.