By Zachary West
Salt Lake County Council approved a six-month ban on the construction of new billboards, bringing the county one step closer to capping the total number of billboards allowed in its boundaries.
Last week, Salt Lake County Council members implemented a moratorium to decide if additional ordinances are needed to govern billboard construction. During the next six months, council members will make that decision.
'A moratorium is implemented so local municipalities, counties or states can take a break,' said Windy McLean, real estate manager for Simmons Outdoor Media. 'It''s so they aren''t inundated with billboards applications and construction.'
Some outdoor advertising companies support the moratorium, while others oppose prohibitions.
Charles Evans, a lobbyist for the largest billboard company in Utah, Regan Outdoor Advertising, said Reagan supports the moratorium.
'In the last year the number of permit requests has ballooned,' Evans said. 'They''ve had 34 building permits in the county and that is too many. We agreed that they should put a moratorium on it.'
Bryan Fox, president of Freeway Advertising and Inside Advertising companies, said he is against any additional bans on billboards and thinks prohibitions and moratoriums hurt landowners more than billboard companies.
'If you put a ban on boards, you lock out any entrance for competition in the market,' he said. 'If you are a landowner and have a billboard on your land, you have no ability to shop that location around to the various billboard companies; the city is effectively taking away the competition for that location.'
McLean agrees that bans are harmful to the industry and hurt business owners that are dependent on billboards to advertise.
'As an industry, we never really like to see someone place a moratorium or prohibit the construction of billboards,' she said. 'Its not our first option, it hurts our business and businesses that are dependent on those billboards to bring customers to their stores.'
Apart from hurting landowners and business owners, a ban on billboards will increase the demand for the billboards in use, Evans said. He also said that as the price continues to go up, it creates a billboard monopoly for companies with billboards already in place.
Billboard companies are speculating about new ordinances that will be implemented at the end of the six-month moratorium.
'I would not be surprised if the change caps the number of billboards in Salt Lake County so there could not be any new billboards built in the county,' Evans said. 'We will try to be involved, but we will see what happens.'
Evans said that in 1997, Salt Lake County officials felt too many billboards were being built. Restrictions were put in place for five years to govern the amount of billboard construction. He said that in those five years, only four new billboards were built.
Other counties, like Utah County are not as concerned with moratoriums because the demand for the billboard market is less than in Salt Lake County.
Peggy Kelsey, of the Utah County Business Licensing Office said 36 billboards in Utah County are licensed and three more have building permits in unincorporated Utah County.
Provo and Lehi cities have prohibited the construction of any new billboards in their city limits.
Fox said restrictions are expanding and that locations are more difficult to find in unincorporated areas. However, he also said a number of rules are necessary to govern the use of billboards.
'Certainly if you flood the market with billboards, the rates for billboards go down dramatically,' he said.