Commission weighs billboard rules
By Steve Herring
Published in News on October 8, 2014 1:46 PM
Wayne County businesses are being forced to advertise outside the county, and local property owners are losing money because of an overly restrictive billboard ordinance, county commissioners said Tuesday.
It does not make sense for the county's ordinance to be more restrictive than state regulations, and it is time to revisit the ordinance with an eye toward easing those restrictions, several commissioners said.
The ordinance has not been changed since it was put in place in 1989, County Planner Connie Price told commissioners during their work session.
Commissioners instructed the Planning Board to review the ordinance and to report back to them at their Dec. 2 meeting.
"I have a concern about the whole ordinance," said Commissioner Joe Daughtery, who first mentioned the rules during the board's Sept. 16 session.
Daughtery said he had only recently learned about the ordinance and that he did not realize how much of a concern he had until after he had looked at the state's regulations on outdoor advertising.
For example, the county ordinance requires the signs be at least 1,000 feet from a highway, compared to 660 feet required by the state, Daughtery said.
The county is more restrictive in size -- 400 square feet or less compared to 1,200 square feet allowed by the state, he said.
Daughtery said he would like to bring the county rules in line with state regulations.
Price said he could not speak to the reasoning behind specific restrictions in the ordinance because it had been adopted before his tenure.
However, bascially, it was designed to preserve and to improve the roadside appearance along highways in unincorporated areas of the county by prohibiting billboards along the freeways, he said.
"(U.S.) 117 South was a new highway from Goldsboro to Mount Olive and from the area south of the fairgrounds to the edge of Mount Olive, it was a freeway," Price said. "That means that it is fully controlled access. There are fences along both sides and you do not have driveways along that stretch of highway."
Until N.C. 44 (the first leg of the new U.S. 70 Bypass) opened in December 2011, there was no other freeway in the county, Price said.
The ordinance also controls all outdoor signs, both spacing and overall size, along the other highways in the county, he said.
The ordinance does not apply to any highways within the corporate limits of the county's municipalities. However, Goldsboro has adopted an ordinance prohibiting the signs along freeways, Price said.
The county's restrictions are meant to minimize visual distractions to motorists, maintain views of the rural countryside and to enhance the attractiveness for residents and businesses, Price said.
It was an effort as well to protect property values and the public's investment in the highways, he said.
Commissioner Bill Pate said it was nice to drive down the road and look at farmland.
However, Pate said if he is on a bypass around a city, and is not planning to stop, that he just "zips right on through."
"We are going to lose a lot of economic traffic if we don't allow our businesses in Wayne County to advertise," he said. "Wayne County businesses are having to go outside the county to put road signs up to advertise their businesses. I think that is unfair. I think that we have go to change that."
Commissioner Ray Mayo said when he travels he looks for the large signs when he is looking for a place to eat. He supported looking at the state rules as well.
Price questioned whether lowering the county's standards to the state's would take something away from the county. That prompted quick rebukes from Mayo and Daughtery.
"Commerce is important to Wayne County ,and if we are not going to allow our citizens or our businessmen to be able to advertise, to get people off the freeway to come and buy barbecue at Wilber's or whatever, I think we are doing a disservice to our citizens," Daughtery said.
He agreed with Mayo that people look for those billboards that are "informational" more than anything else.
"They are not an unsightly thing anymore," he said.
In lieu of billboards, the state allows businesses to pay to advertise on smaller state signs that are located in a highway right of way, Price said.
Mayo said that the signs are too small and easily missed.
'Well, there are two other things that we are not looking at here," Daughtery said. "One, what about property owners who are not having income coming in?
"Two, the county is not able to tax those signs provided by the N.C. Department of Transportation, whereas property tax would be assessed on those signs or billboards. So there are other factors in there that need to be looked at as well."
Pate said in some cases the highways have caused property to be "landlocked" so that it cannot be farmed and the county rules keep the owner from making money by leasing it for a billboard location.