When Houston Mayor Bill White proposed an agreement with the major billboard operator in the city to speed up the removal of hundreds of signs along city streets, urban beautification advocates protested.
In exchange for the expedited dismantlement of small and medium-sized billboards, Clear Channel Outdoor would have been permitted to relocate many of its larger billboards to new sites throughout the city. Since the existing billboard ordinance requires those signs to be phased out, leaders of civic groups such as Scenic Houston and the Quality of Life Coalition denounced the compromise as selling out the long-term campaign against billboards for a less satisfactory quick fix.
Former City Councilman Eleanor Tinsley, who led the fight to pass the original sign statute more than two decades ago, penned a Chronicle op-ed opposing any agreement that allowed sign relocation.
A Chronicle editorial agreed: "Unsightly billboards detract from Houston's quality of life and contributed to the failure of its bid to host the 2012 Olympics. The city should pursue the strategy that will reduce the most billboards in the next few years without presenting hundreds of billboards a new lease on life and their owners permission to blight locations now billboard free." It ended with a challenge to the White administration and sign opponents to find a solution.
Happily, the challenge appears to have been met. A new agreement hammered out in extensive negotiations between the city, Clear Channel and billboard opponents will expedite the removal of more than 800 Clear Channel billboards, including 51 in designated scenic districts, without giving the company the right to relocate any sign.
Instead, the deal would allow the corporation to add 20 years to the lives of 24 of its biggest and most profitable billboards. Developer Ed Wulfe, a Scenic Houston board member, says the trade-off preserves the goal of removing all off-premise road signs while getting rid of more billboards sooner. "We run this incredible steeplechase of trying to get to no billboards," explains Wulfe, "but having an overriding policy that we stick to of no new billboards means that amortization and acts of God work to our benefit."
City Council is expected to approve the pact, which should serve as a model for dealing with other sign companies. The White administration deserves credit for listening to citizens' concerns and returning to the drawing board to recraft a flawed agreement.
The result is an ordinance that constitutes a major stride toward reducing Houston's visual blight while earning the support of most of the parties involved. After 25 years of billboard wars, that in itself might constitute a miracle.