LA Metro’s push to erect digital billboards across Los Angeles cleared a hurdle on Thursday, Sept. 14, when the city’s planning commission unanimously recommended that the City Council amend the zoning code that bans such billboards in the city.
Metro wants to erect up to 49 billboard structures, most with double-sided display screens, which would result in 86 total digital billboards throughout the city.
The planning commission recommended eliminating three of the double-sided structures, leaving in place 46 structures with a total of 80 billboard displays. The planning department recommended rejecting three proposed billboard structures, two of which would be built near land called the “Bowtie” on the eastern bank of the L.A. River which is expected to become a state park.
The commission also went along with a recommendation from city planners to set the digital billboard hours of operation from 5 a.m. to midnight, to address concerns that the night sky will be lit up by intense lighting.
Planning Commission President Samantha Millman acknowledged before the commission voted 6-0 to recommend that the City Council allow digital billboards, that she’s had trepidations about digital signs. But she said she was voting “yes” because the signs, which won’t have animation, will use new technology to dampen their brightness.
“We are experimenting with something that has not been done before in the city,” Millman said. “There is a different type of technology available to us, with these louvers that prevent the light spread, that gives me a lot more comfort than what we would get with a traditional digital sign.”
Cindy Cleghorn, a member of the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council, speaking as an individual, said in an interview before the meeting that that allowing digital billboards could put L.A. on a dangerous path.
“It’s ugly and trashy, and we’re not Las Vegas,” Cleghorn said.
Metro’s billboard proposal, known as the
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