CITY COUNCIL TO DISCUSS AMENDING BILLBOARD ORDINANCE

  

One of the items on this week’s City Council meeting agenda is an amendment proposed to be added to the city’s billboard ordinances.  SignAD Outdoor made a presentation to the council in April of this year asking for the city to allow digital billboards in the city.  Billboards differ from signs in that they are not displayed adjacent to the place of business they advertise.  Currently, the city prohibits billboards inside the city limits and in the extraterritorial jurisdiction area around the city.  Those that do exist inside the city were grandfathered in when the original ordinance was written.

A workshop session was held with the city’s Board of Adjustments and arguments were made both for and against amending the billboard ordinance.  The amendment that goes before council on Thursday continues to ban billboards, digital or otherwise, from the city and adds several provisions to enable city staff to remove them.  The amendment says that if no advertising appears on a billboard for 120 consecutive days, the city can order it removed.  Also, the amendment says that if the cost of repairing a billboard exceeds 60% of its new value, it must be removed.

The Brenham City Council meets this Thursday at 1 PM in the second floor Council Chambers at City Hall.