Today (Thursday), the City Council will conduct a public hearing on the latest proposals to emerge from Austin’s long-running war against illegal “bandit signs“ in public rights-of-way. A year ago, City Hall embarked on an aggressive campaign to stamp out bandit signs, including training volunteer “sign rangers” and organizing a Saturday clean-sweep event dubbed the Great Austin Sign-Off. But that effort got shut down when the Travis Co. Republican Party — worried that candidate signs would disappear from view at the height of the 2002 election season — won a temporary restraining order in U.S. district court. The attendant lawsuit — in which the Travis GOP alleged that both the 15-year-old sign ordinance and the means of its enforcement were unconstitutional — went nowhere, however, other than to prompt Judge James Nowlin to encourage the city to revise its lengthy sign regulations (Title 10 of the Land Development Code) to improve their clarity.
The provisions before the City Council today are an attempt to do just that — as well as to reflect changes made to state law under the recently passed HB 212, which took effect Sept. 1. That law, authored by state Rep. Terry Keel, R-Austin (and specifically targeted at the Village of Bee Cave), prohibits municipalities from using sign regulations to prevent or limit the size of political signs placed on private property. (Certain city code provisions affect signs placed within 15 feet of the actual public right-of-way). But the “bandit signs” that were at the crux of the city’s campaigns — the lose-weight-now, work-from-home variety, often attached to utility poles or trees — are still fair game. “These signs … are obstructive to pedestrians and pose a potential safety hazard to drivers throughout the city [and] are an illegal form of advertising that diminishes the beauty of our neighborhoods and city landscape,” writes city neighborhood liaison Cora Wright. Staff and council members are reportedly working on ways to devise less-restrictive rules for lost-pet signs and other noncommercial announcements.
This article appears in October 10 • 2003.