Electronic billboards may soon line freeways
Critic says city’s attempt to dismantle decadeslong ban could bring a ‘free for all’
In its latest step toward dismantling a decadeslong ban on new billboards, San Jose will consider allowing up to 90 new digital billboards on private property as well as some smaller signs on public land — a move that could considerably alter views from the city’s freeways.
The city’s Planning Department is holding a virtual meeting tonight to seek public input on an environmental report that will consider the impact of a handful of proposed amendments to the city’s sign ordinance.
If the changes are accepted by the council this year, the amendments could drastically change how the city deals with billboards going forward and the aesthetics of driving in San Jose.
Since 1972, San Jose has prohibited the construction of new billboards on city-owned land, and in 1985, leaders passed a citywide ban on new billboards both on public and private land. Proponents of the ban have long argued that they create visual blight, attract graffiti and negatively affect the environment and surrounding wildlife.
But in recent years, city leaders and advocates behind the use of digital billboards say they offer an opportunity to generate new revenue, decrease blight by replacing dilapidated, paper billboards scattered across the city and promote important public messaging.
“It’s unfortunate that some individuals believe this is adding to the problem when indeed we actually have the opportunity to get rid of a lot of blight and old signage and make room for something that will really benefit the community,” Councilman Raul Peralez, who has been working on amending the city’s sign ordinance for nearly five years, said in a recent interview.
Under the proposed amendments, the city would allow private property owners to erect free-standing billboard structures on freeway-facing sites.
As of May, the city had identified 90 potential sites — up from
just 50 in March. The sites primarily line Highway 87 — from the airport down to U.S. 85, Interstate 280 — just south of downtown San Jose, and Interstate 880.
Officials also are considering allowing small digital billboards on city-owned land in the public right of way and building-mounted signage opportunities in downtown and North San Jose. It’s unclear how many new digital signs those changes could warrant.
Digital signs throughout the city also would be allowed to start illuminating light at 5 a.m. The city’s current sign ordinance requires that signs be completely shut off from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m.
Companies that want to construct new electronic billboards would have to take down at least four traditional static billboards within the city, according to the proposed amendments.
If a company seeking to put up a digital billboard does not already have four static billboards in San Jose, it could negotiate with property owners that control
existing signs in the city.
Katja Irvin, a co-chair of the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter’s Conservation Committee, said the proposals “looks like a free for all to put these electronic message boards along our freeways.”
“At this point, no one has really seen these things as freestanding signs in the city before. This is going to be a huge change,” Irvin said. “And as a resident of San Jose, I feel like it’s not going to be good for the image of our city.”
Irvin, who represents thousands of local members of the Sierra Club, said the group’s major concerns are the impact of the signs on biological resources such as the Guadalupe River, the aesthetic character of the city and the quality of life of nearby residents.
In a letter to the city, the group asked the planning department to consider project alternatives, including rejecting the proposal entirely, requiring that 10 — instead of four — traditional billboard signs be taken down to build one digital billboard, and increasing, rather than decreasing, the hours that electronic signs must be shut off.
This is the second major effort in recent years to loosen the city’s restrictions on digital signs and billboards. In September 2018, the council approved a new policy allowing signs — such as billboards and programmable electronic signs — solely on 17 city-owned sites that could accommodate up to 22 signs.
Both the 2018 changes and the current proposed policies came after “requests from billboard representatives, business associations and private business owners to consider removing the billboard ban,” according to city documents.
John Miller, a Los Gatos resident and a founder of Scenic America, a nonprofit organization against visual pollution, said he feels there has been “no acknowledgment of the public interest in all of this.”
“Why is the council being so generous to the billboard industry? What do taxpayers get out of all of this?” Miller said. “It just shows you the value they put on the aesthetic of the city.”
The environmental impact report evaluating the impacts of the changes to the city’s sign ordinance is expected to be completed this fall.