Up In The Air
Some call it a good thing for the community.
Others say it sickens them.
Next week, the Spokane County Planning Commission takes up a proposal to regulate the size, height, location and spacing of all future billboards in unincorporated Spokane County.
It’s reviewing a draft, written by a bitterly divided committee of volunteers. The commission hopes Thursday’s public hearing will give them clearer direction from the community.
Supporters of the newly released proposal call it a good compromise, one that will require at least 300 feet between billboards, and will prevent mega-size billboards larger than 672 square feet.
Opponents call it a disgrace — a proposal written by the sign industry to protect itself and perhaps stave off something more restrictive in the future.
The two sides were thrown together last year in a volunteer committee. Their job was to come up with draft billboard standards.
Although these new standards would regulate billboards throughout Spokane County, it’s the Valley’s emerging commercial districts such as the area around the Spokane Valley Mall that will be affected most by the rules.
Spokane County commissioners banned all new billboards temporarily to prevent a rush of new signs. Ten permits narrowly beat the moratorium - most for sites around the Valley Mall and along East Sprague in the Valley. Some of those billboards are going up now.
Sign companies deny trying to beat new regulations. They say they just didn’t want to lose customers and financing during an indefinite moratorium.
The idea for new regulations actually came from the sign industry itself, originating with a businessman who wanted to keep other billboards from being placed too close to his own.
But the group never reached consensus.
The document that eventually emerged closely mirrors what some sign industry representatives were proposing from the beginning. Committee members less friendly to billboards say they didn’t have a chance to affect the outcome, because two of the four citizen representatives dropped out early and were not replaced. A third dropped out toward the end because of frustration with the process.
“I saw I wasn’t being listened to,” said Carl Kirkham, a committee member who says he’s been upset about sign clutter for years. “Why did they even have a committee?”
But Casey Gray, a committee member who runs Gray Outdoor Advertising, believes the proposal that emerged is positive for Spokane County.
Before the process began, the few billboard-specific restrictions on the books were unknown to most county officials, county planners said. “This is a good thing,” Gray said. “Before, people could plant (billboards) one on top of each other.”
The proposal does impose new restrictions on size, height and spacing. Currently, there is no local limit on how close or large billboards can be.
Under the proposal, billboards couldn’t be larger than 672 square feet. Embellishments which stick out from the rectangular face are allowed, but they can’t exceed 20 percent of the billboard’s size and they must be removed within six months so they don’t become a permanent enlargement.
The above size is the largest you see in Spokane County right now, county planner Stacy Bjordahl said. Billboards come larger, she said, but Spokane doesn’t have a large enough market to demand them.
Under the proposal, no billboard could be taller than 50 feet. Some would have to be shorter, if they were in a more restrictive zone. Currently, a few zones allow signs as tall as 60 or 65 feet.
Under the proposal, billboards would have to be spaced at least 300 feet apart. Currently, there are no spacing requirements.
The proposal also limits billboards to principal arterials, highways or freeways.
Although this is a new restriction, in practical terms, it won’t change anything, planners said.
Advertisers won’t pay for a billboard on a road with little traffic. According to Gray, the most substantial piece of the proposal is the new spacing requirement.
“It’s better for everybody,” he said.
If adopted, the restrictions won’t have much impact on highly developed streets such as Sprague, Division and Trent. These are already saturated, with little land left for new billboards, Gray said.
But the restrictions will affect the future face of quickly developing areas such as the land around the Spokane Valley Mall.
“Harvard. Barker. Eventually we’re going to be combined with Post Falls,” Gray predicted.
Across the Idaho border, Kootenai County commissioners took up the billboard issue last July. Citing a desire to reduce clutter and promote public safety, they voted to prohibit any new billboards in unincorporated areas of their county.
Knowing such a ban was unlikely in this county, the sign committee’s billboard opponents said they proposed a compromise. It included a 300-square foot maximum sign size, 35-foot maximum height size and 600-foot spacing requirement.
They claim it wasn’t seriously considered.
“I’m just really discouraged,” Hannink said. “We fought tooth and tongue to get changes.”
Planners say the draft can be changed, in either direction, depending upon the public’s reaction.
Testimony taken at Thursday’s meeting will be compiled and used by the planning commission to draft a revised proposal next month.
The revised draft will then be forwarded to county commissioners in late April or early May. Commissioners can accept it, deny it or hold their own public hearing on the matter.
This sidebar appeared with the story: PUBLIC HEARING The Spokane County Planning Commission will hold a public hearing at 9 a.m. Thursday on proposed billboard standards for unincorporated areas of Spokane County. The hearing will be held in the lower level of the Public Works Building, 1026 W. Broadway. Copies of the draft billboard standards are available by calling Kristine Chase at 477-3675, ext. 216.