News Room
Houston brings out the nagging mother in us: She'd be such a pretty girl if she paid a shred of attention to her appearance.
The city of Houston is poised to pass a major revision to its decades-old ordinance governing more than 60,000 signs on display at area businesses, proposing numerous changes that supporters hope will improve the city’s appearance.
On Dec. 12, the Chronicle reported that Harris County settled a lawsuit brought by Clear Channel Outdoor over the visibility of one of their billboards. The 25-foot tall billboard had a value for tax purposes of about $21,800, yet the county paid Clear Channel $525,000 for a billboard visibility easement and permitted Clear Channel to keep the billboard and raise it 10 feet higher. (Please see "County must pay $525,000 for sign / I-10 bridge built too high for billboard," City and State cover.)
Silver Lake resident Ric Montejano was walking Sparky, his Chihuahua-mix, when he came upon something that cut him to his "very soul.” Two blocks from his place, on the corner of Silver Lake Boulevard and Effie Street, near a sleek little Italian café and a pricey wine shop, a massive, blazing digital billboard flashed huge images of Sean Combs in his skivvies, a grinning Ellen DeGeneres and an KNBC promo.
Goodbye, green gorillas. Farewell, bargain-screaming streamers. Hasta la vista, giant inflatable muscle men on gym rooftops.
Giant blue gorillas could become an extinct species in Houston, under a proposed ordinance that would ban inflatable advertising balloons and other "attention-getting devices."
A federal judge on Monday restored the city's authority to regulate billboards in a 5-mile ring around its limits, ruling that Houston's sign ordinance is constitutional.
Ike's consolation prize for some Houstonians could be fewer billboards and some scaled-down business signs.
Scenic Houston and Mayor Bill White recently joined to celebrate the 100th billboard removed as part of an April agreement that the organization helped negotiate between the city and Clear Channel Outdoor.
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