The San Antonio City Council will soon consider a plan to reduce signage by allowing 24 new digital billboards in exchange for the removal of four times as many traditional billboards.
The idea was presented to the council’s Planning and Development Committee Monday as part of a larger overhaul of the city’s sign code, details of which were crafted by a committee of construction industry representatives, real estate organizations and neighborhood organizers.
Development Services Director Michael Shannon said the city has been working to reduce signage since the mid-1980s, when San Antonio had roughly 2,400 billboards and off-premise signs.
The city currently has fewer than 800 signs, due to similar programs aimed at incentivizing their reduction, Shannon said.
“The digital conversion is really, I think the fastest way to continue to take down existing billboards,” Shannon told members of the committee.
With digital billboards, numerous advertisers’ messages rotate through one outdoor sign.
Under the new plan the city would offer permits for eight digital billboard conversions per year over three years. Signs eligible for conversion would not include those downtown, on U.S. Highway 281 headed toward downtown, in areas with historic designation or along the Interstate 10 from UTSA Boulevard to Boerne Stage Road, known as the Hill Country Gateway Corridor.
To get the permits, billboard owners would have to remove four static billboards.
The plan drew praise from Luis de la Torre, president and general manager of the billboard company Clear Channel Outdoor, which owns most of the billboards in San Antonio.
“[I] had the pleasure of partnering with our city development team and our community stakeholders to create a program that will significantly reduce the number of signs in San Antonio,” de la Torre told council members Monday. “…I hope you’ll join us in supporting the changes.”
Hill Country corridor
Other changes in the proposed code update include allowing for taller billboards in places where new elevated highways will obstruct the current signage and amending a 2015 prohibition on digital signs in the Hill Country Gateway Corridor.
Digital signage along the corridor is particularly dense because of a 2003 rules change that once allowed for their proliferation.
The corridor was created by a city ordinance intended to regulate development along Interstate 10.
“Why they allowed digital signs … [it was] a mistake,” Bonnie Conner, a former councilwoman who helped with that effort, told the committee Monday. “… The whole concept of the corridor was to keep it from visual clutter and to keep it as natural as possible.”
As written, Shannon said, it allowed for digital displays to make up a quarter of the total signs.
As “one of the items in 2003, digital displays were allowed,” said Shannon. “…Whether that was conscious or a mistake, as Ms. Conner [suggested], that was in the code for 12 years.”
In 2015, then-Councilman Ron Nirenberg requested a study the area around Loop 1604 to assess whether the code matched the city’s goal of limiting distractions and reducing visual clutter. The Zoning Commission agreed that “extremely intense” development in the area warranted a change, and the City Council approved a complete prohibition on new billboards along the Hill Country corridor.
“This code was changed without any input from stakeholders,” said Larry Gottsman, president and owner of Aetna Sign Group who spoke in favor of the code updates.
The proposal being put forth by industry leaders would restore the allowance of digital signs in the corridor, to 25% of the total signage.
Conner said polling indicates the community opposes digital signs, though advertisers desire them.
As development of the area continues, Conner told the council, “You’re going to be faced with a very similar issue. … Everyone wants a sign up there … so be very cautious.”
Shannon said the City Council would likely consider the code update in June.
