Billboard battle heads to city council

The proposal to convert a billboard to dynamic display use is headed to the St. Paul City Council before year’s end. The advocacy group Scenic St. Paul has appealed Planning Commission approval of steps needed to make the conversion.

No appeal hearing date had been set as of Monitor deadline.

The appeal comes as the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Alliance have asked for sweeping amendments to the city’s sign regulations, including changes to what is described as “subjective regulatory language.” Recommendations from city planning staff include eliminating all 17 of the city’s special sign districts, most of which are meant to ban new billboards in neighborhoods. The proposed changes will be the topic of a Planning Commission public hearing in December.

The Planning Commission approved the conversion request on a 4-2 vote Oct. 9. The group Scenic Saint Paul filed the appeal Oct. 19. Union Park District Council and St. Anthony Park Community Council are supporting the appeal.
The sign is at 2516 Wabash Ave., in St. Anthony Park’s planning district. But it is across I-94 from Union Park homes.

OutFront Media owns the billboard and wishes to shift it and convert it for dynamic display. The shift would change the angle of the billboard so that it wouldn’t be in the line of sight of two residential properties south of Interstate 94.

The request isn’t typical for city officials to consider. It requires relocation of nonconforming use permit to change the angle and a variance to move a sign without bringing it into full conformance with all sign code requirements.
The Planning Commission laid over OutFront Media’s request in September, asking city staff for more information. Commission discussion centered on technical points of the city sign code, and where or not OutFront’s request met all six conditions required for a variance. One required variance finding is that a property owner does not create the “plight” it wishes to solve through a variance. Some commissioners questioned whether OutFront’s plight was actually self-created.

Another issue some commissioners and Scenic St. Paul have held up is with the signs slated for removal or sign credits in exchange for a dynamic display sign. St. Paul allows billboard companies to take down neighborhood signs and rack up credits to put toward dynamic display conversions.

Some of the signs OutFront Media would take down are considered by the company to be active but Scenic St. Paul and some commissioners raised questions.

Some of signs aren’t in active use. Other signs are blocked by foliage.

OutFront Media contends that by adding a dynamic sign along the freeway and removing signs in neighborhoods, the company is meeting the city’s goal of reducing the number of billboards overall. A longtime city policy is that neighborhood signs can be taken down and credit given toward dynamic signs along the freeways that run through St. Paul.

Gerrit Hooker, real estate manager for OutFront Media, and city planners Chris Hong and Bill Dermody explained the request at the September public hearing.

Hooker said that 19 billboards with a total of 33 sign faces would come down. Seventeen structures are in neighborhoods. One is near I-94 and Vandalia Avenue and the other is near Interstate 35E and Maryland Avenue.
In the appeal, Scenic St. Paul notes that of the 17 billboards eyed for removal, some signs are partially or totally gone. That includes three billboards along Pierce Butler Route and two along Concord Street. The size of two billboards on Robert Street are stated incorrectly. Based on those discrepancies, OutFront would need to remove more billboards to meet the standard for removal of neighborhood signs and replacement with a dynamic display sign.

“Without a clear list of qualifying billboards OutFront proposes to remove to meet the removal requirement, approval of the nonconforming use permit and variance for converting the existing 672 square-foot east-facing billboard at 2516 Wabash Avenue to dynamic display is premature,” the appeal stated.