Salt Lake City considers fewer billboards for more electronic ones

SALT LAKE CITY — City leaders are hoping to reduce the number of billboards in Utah's capital city, particularly in residential areas, by allowing more electric versions of the large roadside signs.

Confused? Hang in there. It will all make sense soon.

The Salt Lake City Council unanimously supported a nine-month moratorium in April that has prevented any new electronic billboards from going up. The goal was to give city officials time to figure out if, where and how they would be allowed in the city.

The moratorium also put on hold an all-out ban on electronic billboards proposed by Mayor Ralph Becker. But that expires Jan. 13, meaning the City Council must decide before then how to handle the trend of existing roadside advertising being converted into electronic signs with changing images and flashing lights.

The proposed solution: For every existing billboard converted to an electronic sign, another billboard must be taken down elsewhere in the city.

"It's essentially a 2-for-1 swap," said Wilf Sommerkorn, city planning director. "You'd covert the existing billboard, plus take down another billboard in order to get an electronic billboard in the city."

The end result, says city planner Doug Dansie, is a reduction in the number of billboards in the city.

"(The proposed ordinance) is written so if you do convert to electronic, in most cases you have to remove billboards," Dansie said.

The only time a sign company wouldn't have to give up a billboard to make an electronic conversion would be if an existing billboard were removed from a residential area. In that case, the billboard could be moved and converted without any extra requirements, according to the ordinance.

City officials hope that encourages companies to move billboards out of areas where Becker and other city leaders say they don't belong. They have cited aesthetics and safety concerns as reasons for regulating electronic billboards in Salt Lake City.

The City Council has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed ordinance regulating electronic billboards for Jan. 3 at the Salt Lake City-County Building, 451 S. State. The council likely will vote on the ordinance Jan. 10 — three days before the moratorium expires.

Luke Garrott, who will be sworn in Jan. 3 for a second term on the City Council, said he doesn't believe the ordinance goes far enough. If the goal is to reduce the number of billboards, electronic or traditional, companies should have to give up much more than one extra billboard per electronic conversion.