Billboard law leaves city, county with few options

Monday, May 14, 2001 | 10:27 a.m.

Less than two weeks after Clark County commissioners rejected an ordinance written and backed by the billboard industry, the outdoor advertisers are pushing a bill in Carson City that would restrict the ability of local governments to remove the signs.

Local governments have lined up against the bill, which officials say would leave them two options: leave the signs up, despite zoning efforts to remove them, or go bankrupt.

Senate Bill 265 would require the governments seeking to remove a billboard to find and permit the sign on "a comparable site" or pay compensation to the land owner and advertising company.

A handful of local officials and environmentalists spoke against the bill during a Thursday hearing of the Assembly Government Affairs Committee in Carson City.

Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, is chairwoman of the Senate Government Affairs Committee, which introduced the bill. She could not be reached for comment Friday.

At the Thursday hearing, the only speaker signed up to speak for the bill was Mark Fiorentino, a Las Vegas land use attorney and lobbyist for the Nevada Outdoor Media Association.

He said the local officials are crying wolf.

"There's a lot of people saying things about this bill that aren't true," Fiorentino said. "What we're saying is: It's you, the local government, that changed the rules (to outlaw billboards in a specific area).

"If you leave the billboard alone, it doesn't cost you a dime."

But if a local government does take steps to restrict existing billboards, it can cost that government millions. The industry estimates that billboards bring ad agencies' revenues exceeding $4 million a year in Nevada.

Lease incomes to property owners for the signs exceed $10 million a year.

In some cases, the potential liability for a government would be limited by time limits on property leases. But removing some signs could cost local governments hundreds of thousands a year, every year, forever.

Fiorentino argued that the proposed law backs up existing property rights and is similar to laws on the books in 36 other states. He said some property owners depend on income from the lease of their land for the signs.

Chuck Pulsipher, Clark County zoning administrator, said that if the bill passes the assembly and is signed by the governor, hundreds of billboards that might have once come down will become immune to any zoning restrictions.

"If local governments attempted to take down billboards and pay just compensation, it would bankrupt local governments," Pulsipher said. "The billboards will just remain."

Removing billboards, for example in a once-largely empty area now filling up with residences, would require a special bond referendum from the entire county -- an unlikely prospect, he said.

"It means we won't be removing billboards, now or in the future," said Chris Knight, Las Vegas Planning and Development deputy director.

He said the bill would affect 158 billboards in the city out of a total of 328.

Knight said the Senate and Assembly appeared poised to take local zoning control away from local authorities.

"It erodes the city's ability to control its own destiny," he said. "It takes this land use of a billboard and makes it a unique and protected land use.

"If a community makes a decision that it would like to see fewer billboards, this bill would override the values of the community," Knight said.

The bill in Carson City comes after the County Commission rejected a local ordinance drafted by the billboard industry and Commissioner Erin Kenny. The county has at least a dozen applications for new billboards pending, but these are likely to stay in limbo until a new billboard ordinance is drafted -- if a new ordinance is drafted.

Commissioner Myrna Williams, who came out early and strongly against the proposed county ordinance, said the bill in Carson City is a bad piece of legislation.

The bill, if passed, may have a side effect that the billboard industry would not appreciate: Williams said she would not vote for many new billboards if the industry makes it difficult to remove them.

"If you can never get rid of it, then what do you do?" she asked.

Pulsipher said Williams and other elected policy-makers may soon be in that position. Support seems strong among members of both the Senate, which already has passed it, and the Assembly, he said.

"I get the distinct impression that they are going to pass it," he said. "If the Legislature adopts the bill, we'll abide by it, and we'll adjust."