FOR RELEASE: Victory Lifts Temporary Ban on Digital Signs
Chicago’s temporary ban on digital signs is over and International Sign Association (ISA) is happy to deliver news that Mayor Rahm Emanuel signed a new and improved ordinance this week. This victory saved potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in pending projects that had been frozen due to the moratorium and far more in potential future business for local sign companies and suppliers who manufacture signs for local businesses.
Members of ISA, the Illinois Sign Association and representatives of the on-premise sign industry have been working with administration staff since the ban was put into place in July 2013. The groups have been negotiating and monitoring provisions that ISA believed would be harmful to the sign industry and its customers.
ISA’s Kenny Peskin testified in favor of the updated bill at a Zoning Committee hearing earlier this week. He and other members of the on-premise sign industry believe the compromise establishes regulations that are far more workable than the draconian proposals first suggested by some stakeholders.
“From the start of this in July, our objective has been to lift the moratorium as quickly as possible and to establish favorable regulations that worked for the on-premise sign industry,” said Peskin. “Given the obstacles, I think that this is the best result possible. And these new regulations are being established without prohibiting new digital sign permits from expressway corridors or downtown mixed-use districts.”
The new legislation:
- Lifts the 10-month moratorium for on-premise digital displays
- Adjusts upward the proposed brightness standards, with a significant increase in daytime levels
- Removes proposed prohibition on new digital signs along expressway corridors
The moratorium was put into place to allow City staff and a Council task force to draft new regulations for digital signs. With the moratorium scheduled to expire on April 30, City staff rushed to finish a proposal and pass it through Council in an expedited manner. ISA and its allies succeeded in convincing City staff and Council to eliminate or reduce several proposed regulations and to correct several technical and grammatical errors in the proposal.
