City Council members made a mistake two weeks ago when they voted, albeit by a narrow 5-4 margin, to allow a large, new billboard with blinking lights to be erected at a busy intersection near Hamilton Place, all because a billboard inspector mistakenly had approved a permit for a billboard that clearly violated the city’s billboard rules and the valued Scenic Corridor restrictions. If at least one of the five council members who voted to let the mistake dictate that result will vote tonight to reverse course, the unconscionable vote may be corrected.
It might result in a court fight, but preserving the city’s rules to limit further billboard blight is worth a court fight.
The City Council has been wise enough over the past two decades to create and strengthen its billboard restrictions. Indeed, it has added dozens of roadways to the list of protected Scenic Corridors to prevent the proliferation of billboards as new commercial areas are developed. To see a list of the latter, see Chapter Five of the City Code, at http://www.chattanooga.gov/City_Council/110_Code.asp
Current council members should be wise enough now to reverse a misguided surrender, taken under threat of court action, that would undermine its billboard codes. If it comes to a court fight, at least billboard companies will know that the City Council is prepared to fight to bar proliferation of more and larger billboards.
The billboard at issue concerns a plan by Fairway Outdoor Advertising to replace a junior billboard that has long stood at the intersection of Gunbarrel and East Brainerd roads with a larger, more glaring billboard. Junior billboards may not be larger than 75 square feet, or about six feet high by just over 12 feet long. The next size category allows billboards up to 380 square feet. The billboard with blinking lights that Fairway Outdoor Advertising wants to put up on the northwest corner of Gunbarrel and East Brainerd roads would be about 12 feet high by 25 feet long, or 300 square feet.