BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE
Senator Tom Torlakson, Chair
BILL NO: SB 1480 HEARING: 5/1/02
AUTHOR: Speier FISCAL: Yes
VERSION: 4/18/02 CONSULTANT: Detwiler
LOCAL REGULATION OF BILLBOARDS
Background and Existing Law
States risk the loss of federal highway subsidies if they
don't regulate billboards along highways that receive
federal funding. California's Outdoor Advertising Act sets
statewide standards for the size and construction of
highway billboards, including minimum spacing requirements.
The State Department of Transportation (Caltrans)
regulates billboards within 660 feet from the edge of
interstate or primary highways, and billboards up to 1,000
feet away if they are visible.
Riverside and San Mateo city officials complain that some
companies purposely erect illegally billboards near
highways because the advertising income is greater than
costs of the statutory fines and legal defense costs.
Local officials want legislators to raise the fines, allow
them to require local permits, and let them enforce state
law.
Proposed Law
Senate Bill 1480 changes the Outdoor Advertising Act in
four ways:
I. Local permits . The Act requires Caltrans to issue a
billboard permit to an applicant who complies with the
statutory requirements, including evidence that the
property owner consents to placing the billboard.
Caltrans' permit does not exempt the billboard's owner from
complying with local zoning ordinances. Local officials
say that the Act requires Caltrans to issue billboard
permits even when local regulations ban them. Senate Bill
1480 requires permit applicants to provide written evidence
that the local agency with land use control over the
proposed billboard's location has consented.
SB 1480 -- 4/18/02 -- Page 2
II. Spacing and size standards . The Act allows billboards
within 660 feet of interstate and primary highways in
"business areas" --- areas zoned for industrial and
commercial activities. Within business areas, billboard
must meet statutory standards for spacing and size. Local
officials want more control over billboards' locations.
Senate Bill 1480 allows a local government entity with land
use jurisdiction to enact spacing and size ordinances for
billboards in business areas that are more restrictive than
those imposed by the state.
III. Fees and fines . The Act limits Caltrans' billboard
permit fees to $20 a year. If someone places a billboard
without a valid permit, the permit fee is $95, of which $75
is the penalty (SB 675, Dills, 1991). Caltrans says that
its administrative costs are greater than the permit
revenues, resulting in a cross-subsidy from other
transportation funds. Local officials say that low penalty
fees don't deter illegal billboards because the monthly
advertising income is greater than the $75 annual penalty.
Senate Bill 1480 raises the penalty for billboards without
valid permits to:
$100 for a billboard that conforms to the Act's
standards.
$10,000 plus $100 a day for a billboard that
does not conform to the Act's standards or local
ordinances, and is not removed within 30 days of a
written notice from either Caltrans or the local
government.
SB 1840 additionally requires the applicant and a person
working in concert with the applicant to disgorge the gross
revenues from the unauthorized billboard. The bill allows
either Caltrans or the local government to enforce these
penalties.
IV. Landscaped freeways . The Outdoor Advertising Act bans
billboards adjacent to landscaped freeways. Billboards
must be removed within three years after a freeway becomes
a landscaped freeway, probably triggering compensation
claims by their owners. The Act defines "landscaped
freeway" as a section of freeway with at least one side
improved by planting lawns, trees, shrubs, flowers, or
ornamental vegetation. Plantings for erosion control,
traffic safety, fire hazards, or traffic noise do not
change a freeway into a landscaped freeway. Just because a
SB 1480 -- 4/18/02 -- Page 3
freeway has oleanders in the median doesn't make it a
landscaped freeway, thereby avoiding the Act's ban on
billboards. Senate Bill 1480 extends the definition of a
landscaped freeway by recognizing landscaping within a
freeway's median, and by repealing the exemption for
plantings for erosion control, traffic safety, fire
hazards, or traffic noise.
Comments
1. Ogden Nash was right . Prompted by the 1965 federal
Highway Beautification Act, California legislators rewrote
the state laws regulating billboards along interstate
freeways and other highways. Nearly four decades later,
that structure of state preemption remains, leaving local
officials few tools to regulate highway billboards. Some
communities want to swap-out older, smaller billboards from
their downtowns and relocate them to highway corridors.
Others are appalled when rogue companies put up highway
billboards without local permits, then pull in monthly
incomes that dwarf the statutory annual penalties. As
Nash's 1933 poem declares: I think I shall never see/A
billboard as lovely as a tree./Indeed, unless the
billboards fall/I'll never see a tree at all. SB 1480
boosts local officials' ability to control billboards along
federally funded highways.
2. Layers of laws . Advertising became a part of American
20th Century life, a ubiquitous but legal form of
commercial speech that appeared in all media. Federal
laws, state statutes, and local ordinances regulate the
size, location, and sometimes even the content of banners,
signs, and billboards. Complying with government
regulations is an economic burden to private firms,
especially when they have to adjust to hundreds of local
variations in hundreds of separate communities. Having
uniform statewide standards helps an industry meet its
obligations no matter where it does business in California.
The Committee may wish to consider whether SB 1480
encourages yet another regulatory layer that will burden
private industry.
3. Cheaters shouldn't prosper . Putting up illegal
billboards on weekends without local permits is not an
accepted practice in the billboard industry. When rogue
SB 1480 -- 4/18/02 -- Page 4
companies use low statutory penalties and slow enforcement
to cash in on monthly advertising income, they gain an
unfair competitive advantage over the law-abiding
companies. SB 1480's higher penalties and the bill's
requirement to disgorge gross revenues from unauthorized
billboards will not touch the overwhelming majority of
billboard companies.
4. Swaps . Trying to improve the quality of life in their
downtowns and residential neighborhoods, some communities
try to persuade billboard companies to relocate older signs
to highway corridors. These so-called "swap-out" or
relocation agreements benefit both the neighborhoods that
lose many older, smaller signs and the companies that get
to put up a few, bigger signs along the freeway. By
expanding the definition of landscaped freeways, SB 1480
reduces the number of places to which older billboards may
be relocated. There is no reliable estimate of the number
of freeway miles that would become landscaped freeways when
SB 1480 changes the statutory definition. The Committee
may wish to consider if SB 1480 makes it harder for local
officials to reach relocation agreements with billboard
companies.
5. Three years later . Strange as it seems, landscaped
median strips don't qualify a California freeway as a
"landscaped freeway." A freeway has to have trees and
shrubs on its sides to qualify. State law says that
billboards must come down three years after a freeway
segment becomes a landscaped freeway. That almost never
happens because the billboard owners would sue Caltrans for
just compensation, arguing that the regulation resulted in
an unconstitutional taking of property. Because SB 1480
broadens the statutory definition of "landscaped freeway,"
the bill will start the three-year countdown by operation
of law. Because of SB 1480, by January 1, 2006, there will
be either (a) fewer billboards along California's
landscaped freeways, or (b) lots of lawsuits asking for
just compensation.
6. Sense and dollars . SB 1480 does not change the $20
statutory limit that Caltrans can charge for its annual
billboard permits. Last raised in 1991, that amount is
well below Caltrans' actual administrative costs. State
law allows local officials to charge permit processing fees
as long as they don't exceed the estimated reasonable cost
SB 1480 -- 4/18/02 -- Page 5
of performing the service for which the fees are charged.
That statutory recipe echoes the constitutional standard
set by Proposition 218. The Committee may wish to consider
an amendment to SB 1480 that allows Caltrans to raise its
annual billboard permit fees to recover the state's costs.
7. Technical amendments . The Committee should adopt
technical amendments to SB 1480 to avoid confusion.
Sections 2 of the bill refers to a "government entity
having land use control." Section 3 refers to a "local
government entity having land use jurisdiction." Section 4
refers to a "local government having land use control."
Because counties and cities are the only local governments
that have the police power to regulate land use, the bill
should clearly refer to counties and cities.
8. Legislative history . The Senate Rules Committee
ordered the double-referral of SB 1480 to both the Senate
Transportation Committee and the Senate Local Government
Committee. On Thursday, April 25, the Senate
Transportation Committee passed SB 1480 by the vote of 9-0.
There have been no amendments to the bill since then.
Support and Opposition (4/26/)
Support : American Planning Association-California Chapter,
Automobile Club of Southern California, League of
California Cities, Cities of Los Angeles, Riverside, San
Mateo.
Opposition : California Sign Association, California State
Outdoor Advertising Association.