New billboards would become harder to put up in Fayetteville under a proposal set to go before the City Council on Monday.
City planners and members of the Fayetteville Planning Commission have recommended that no new billboards be allowed in the city — but companies would still be allowed to upgrade existing ones if they agreed to remove others.
Billboards have been the subject of two lawsuits against the city in the past two months. The council, which meets at 7p.m. at City Hall, has scheduled a public hearing on the issue.
The council also is scheduled to vote on a proposed $175 million budget that contains $1.2million more in operating money for the bus system. Some of that new money will come from the council’s decision April 28 to double the $5 vehicle tax for transit.
Several council members and Mayor Tony Chavonne said they were prepared to adopt the budget Monday.
“I think the council is very deliberate on it, and I’m glad we are able to do all that we can with the budget constraints we face,” Chavonne said.
A bigger controversy Monday will be billboards, which are permitted in heavy commercial and industrial zones. But Jimmy Teal, the city’s planning director, said there are few places where billboards are allowed now because they must meet distance requirements from one another and neighborhoods.
Lamar Advertising, with about 175 billboard “faces,” or sides, in the Fayetteville area, has the largest presence in the area.
Digital billboards
Lamar has put up two digital billboards — on Raeford Road and the All American Freeway — that beam bright advertisements that change every eight seconds.
The company did so under a so-called transfer ordinance that lets it request to upgrade a conventional billboard at one location while removing another one elsewhere in the city.
This swap in effect reduces the number of billboard faces in the city. Many billboards have two faces.
Some council members said Friday that they would support the proposal to ban new billboards from any zoning district.
“It will reduce some of the clutter,” Councilman Keith Bates said.
But the Planning Commission went a step further last month: It recommended that the city ban digital billboards in the transfer process that Lamar has used to upgrade two conventional signs.
Some council members, including D.J. Haire, said they were not prepared to go that far.
“It’s difficult with changing times and technology, but I think eventually the digitals are going to be,” he said. “I just want the city to get a fair shake and see that they are strategically placed.”
The Planning Department, which wants to allow digital billboards through the transfer process, also wants to impose other requirements limiting their height and distance from other digital billboards.
In addition, planners have recommended that the city require companies to remove six billboard faces for every digital face that goes up. The thinking is a digital billboard carries up to six ads.
That would be a dramatic change. The city now requires a one-for-one billboard face swap in the transfer ordinance.
Lamar has filed two lawsuits against the city, seeking to put up 11 more digital billboards through the transfer process. The city has put on hold hearing any of those requests while both parties try to find common ground.