Cedar Rapids takes final action on big billboards, payday lenders

The face of the city will be changing.

On Tuesday, final, unanimous actions by the City Council should mean fewer big billboards and fewer high-interest payday lender shops in the city.

After months of City Hall study, the council enacted a new ordinance that will limit new payday lenders to the city's C-2 commercial district, require new shops to secure a conditional use permit and require the new shops to be 1,000 feet from similar shops and from churches, schools, day cares and parks.

Neighborhood leaders had complained about the proliferation and density of the shops and asked the City Council for some help.

On the billboard front, the council's action on Tuesday caps the number of big off-premise billboards at the current number, about 80, the city estimates.

At the same time, the ordinance amendment will require sign companies to remove an existing billboard of similar size for every new one that it erects. This could require the removal of two smaller billboards if a new one of the largest permitted size, 672 square feet, is put up.

The council continues to study additional changes to the sign ordinance for digital signs, including large digital billboards. Under the current proposal, a sign company would have to remove two traditional billboards of equal size for every digital billboard it erects.

The changes to the sign ordinance that were approved on Tuesday grandfather in existing signs.

However, one other significant change to the ordinance will require that the size of new signs be geared to the speed limit of the street on which a new sign will go in appropriately zoned industrial and commercial corridor areas. The biggest signs, of 672 square feet, will be allowed only on highways where the speed limit is above 55 mph per hour, which will limit the biggest new signs to parts of Interstate 380 and parts of Highway 30.

On June 25, the council will hold a public hearing on proposed ordinance changes for digital signs of all sizes and kinds.

Tuesday's council discussion showed that some council members and sign companies have questions about proposed changes for smaller, on-premise digital signs that don't sell advertising space but identify a particular business site.

Phil Garland, president of Nesper Sign Advertising Inc., called on the council to spend more time reviewing what restrictions it wants to place on on-premise digital signs that banks, churches and businesses rely on to get people through the door.

The current city ordinance, for instance, allows on-premise pole signs to be 45 feet tall, but the proposed changes would limit the height to 20 feet. Some trucks can hit signs at 20 feet, Garland told the council.

At some point, a too-restrictive sign policy begins to restrict "commercial speech, free speech," Garland said. "To limit speech starts to get my American blood boiling," he added.

Council member Chuck Swore said he had received numerous emails from businesses and sign companies worried that their digital on-premise signs would need to come down.

Council member Monica Vernon, the chairwoman of the council's Development Committee, noted that the committee had moved the proposed changes to the full City Council with the thought that the city needs to move in the direction of a "clean, uncluttered look." Some cities prohibit digital signs, she added.

Council member Scott Olson, a member of the Development Committee, said he favored many of the proposed changes, but not all of them. He said the city needed to do more study.

On Feb. 1, the council imposed a six-month moratorium on permits for new signs to prevent sign companies from rushing to erect new signs under the existing rules even as the council was working to change the rules.

Swore said he thought the focus of the moratorium was on the big billboards, but Vernon noted that it extended to a broader group of signs. Part of the moratorium was lifted on Tuesday, including for digital signs if sign companies and businesses agreed to abide by the proposed new digital rules.

Olson said it didn't make sense for companies to abide by proposed rules that the council might not adopt, but his amendment was defeated on a 5-4 vote.