County moves to restrict billboards

Thursday, March 4, 2004 | 9:38 a.m.

The Clark County Commission moved to restrict billboards in the latest chapter of a years-long effort to cut the number of the signs in the urban part of the unincorporated county.

Commissioners voted 6-0 to establish a 90-day moratorium on accepting land-use applications for new billboards Wednesday, but set an April 21 hearing for a proposed ordinance that would ban new billboards throughout much of the county.

Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, who has been a foe of billboards for years, proposed the ordinance. However, he also put several amendments into the proposed rules Wednesday. Instead of banning all new signs anywhere in the unincorporated county, his original proposal, Woodbury's amendments would allow billboards south of St. Rose Parkway and north of the North Las Vegas city line along Interstate 15.

Some smaller companies that erect and sell advertising space on billboards are opposing the proposal and their effort has been joined by landowners who get rental income from the signs. Representatives from those groups say that the new law will disproportionately favor large billboard companies, which control many of the leases for land underneath billboards that already exist throughout the urban area.

Under the proposed law, existing signs will not have to come down. But if a sign did come down after a lease expired or for some other reason, the landowner and billboard company would not be allowed to apply for a permit for a new sign.