Are More Sunset Strip Billboards on the Horizon?

How many billboards is enough? That is the question before the Planning Commission Thursday night as they will consider four separate petitions by Sunset Strip businesses to either add billboards or alter existing billboards on their rooftops.

If approved, the city will receive huge monthly fees thanks to development agreements with each of the business owners.

The Grafton Hotel at 8462 Sunset seeks to construct a v-shaped 69-foot-tall billboard on its roof while the Key Club at 9039 Sunset wants to erect a double-sided 70-foot-tall billboard on its roof.

The building at 8535 Sunset (between La Cienega and Alta Loma) proposes replacing its existing v-shaped billboard with a double-sided billboard and raising the height to 68 feet.

A three-story office building at 8335 Sunset (just west of Sweetzer) also seeks to replace its doubled-sided billboard with a v-shaped billboard and raise the height to 70 feet.

City Hall staff is recommending that the Planning Commission approve these new billboards.

“The benefit is we’ve identified that more signage adds to the vitality of the Sunset Strip,” said John Keho, head of the city’s planning department.

The city will also benefit financially because of the development agreements they have entered into with the business owners, he said.

If approved, the development agreement with 8335 Sunset would see the business paying $10,500 to the city every four weeks for the next 20 years. That comes out to $2.7 million over the life of the agreement.

Each of the other businesses have development agreements with similar fees and time frames.

Since billboards are not taxed, the only revenue the city receives from existing billboards is through business license taxes.

A “development agreement” locks in certain rules/arrangements with the city, allowing businesses to develop their project in ways not expressly permitted under the Sunset Specific Plan, the 15-year-old guideline for development along the Sunset Strip.

Some Sunset area residents are upset, saying more billboards are not needed. They believe the Strip is already saturated with billboards.

“It’s eye pollution,” said Richard Rothenberg, who has lived on Larrabee Street for 19 years. “The blue sky is disappearing.”  

Rothenberg is especially concerned that new billboards will block the views of some apartment dwellers. “They’ll look out their window, and the only thing they’ll be able to see is a billboard,” he said.

The Planning Commission was originally scheduled to consider three of these billboard proposals at its April 21 meeting, but delayed it, seeking input from the City Council.

Several commissioners wanted to create a Sunset Strip Billboard Task Force to determine whether more billboards were wanted or needed. However, the City Council turned down that task force idea and instructed the Planning Commission to deal with it.

At that April 21 Planning Commission meeting, some commissioners expressed doubts about adding more signage. Commissioner Marc Yeber commented, “That many billboards make none of them effective.”

Rothenberg believes more billboards are simply overkill. “When is it going to end?” Rothenberg said. “Is it going to look like a city in Japan or the movie Blade Runner?”

City Hall staff deliberately scheduled all four billboard proposals to be heard on the same night, but each one will be dealt with individually by the Planning Commission.

Whether the commission approves the billboards or not, the final decision will lie in the hands of the City Council. As Keho reminds, “The Planning Commission is a recommendation body only.” 

The Planning Commission meeting is Thursday starting at 6:30 p.m. in .