City-County Council committee approves billboard regulation changes – Indianapolis Business Journal

The City-County Council’s Metropolitan and Economic Development Committee on Monday approved a proposal to change the city’s restrictions on billboards. The move is part of a compromise after state lawmakers nearly passed a similar provision into law this year.

A measure from state lawmakers would have allowed owners of billboards to relocate them without receiving a city permit. When that proposal was introduced as an amendment to a transportation bill in January, local groups including Historic Urban Neighborhoods of Indianapolis, or HUNI, came out against it. The measure was eventually withdrawn.

Shannon Norman, principal planner for code revision, said state lawmakers instead gave the Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration the task of meeting with representatives of the billboard industry to find a compromise on relocation and Indy’s current standards.

Norman told the council metropolitan and economic development committee Monday that Proposition 349 is that compromise. The change gives advertisers the option of relocating signs, Norman said, but upholds the long-held restriction that there cannot be new billboards inside of the Interstate 465 loop. That restriction was established in 2002 and most recently affirmed in a 2019 council vote.

Members of neighborhood advocacy groups like HUNI and the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations have long been against the proliferation of billboards in the center of the city.

Norman said the city measure maintains that goal, but gives billboard owners more leeway to relocate signs.

Mainly, the proposal states that companies may relocate billboards that are within the Interstate 465 loop from one placement to another on the same parcel of land without obtaining a permit. Outside the loop, signs can be relocated to different parcels without obtaining a permit. In both cases, the billboards cannot be enlarged.

Representatives from both groups representing neighborhoods spoke favorably of the proposal, which aims to maintain local control where state lawmakers were planning to intervene.

“It protects from rampant proliferation of billboards while reiterating the importance of certain development standards that impact the aesthetics and the quality of life in our community,” Pat Andrews of the Alliance of Neighborhood Associations, told the committee.

The full City-County Council will vote on the proposal Dec. 2.