Measure 37 Claim, Portland billboard

This Thursday afternoon, the Portland City Council will hear the Measure 37 claim of Jeffrey Davis, Debra Carey, and Thomas Karter (Word document), the heirs of a site at the intersection of NE Pacific/NE 49th, near I-84. The claimants want to be allowed to remove an existing 242 square foot, 45 foot high freestanding sign/billboard, and replace it with a 35 foot high, 300 square foot changing image (video) freestanding sign/billboard.

The Staff Report’s findings:

“Neither the City’s current sign regulations nor the regulations in place at the time of purchase in 1996, or 1999 would have allowed the 300-square-foot, 35-foot tall freestanding, changing image sign requested by the claimant. As a result, the regulations enacted since the claimant acquired the property do not restrict the proposed use of the property.

• Reduction in Fair Market Value: Since the proposed use would not have been allowed on the property at the time of acquisition by the current owners, there has not been any reduction in value as a result of the enforcement of the City’s regulations to disallow the proposed use.

• Staff Recommendation: Based on the findings and conclusions in this report, staff recommends that the City Council deny Jeffrey Davis, Debra Carey, and Thomas Karter’s claim for compensation.”

This seems an open-and-shut case, however there is an interesting twist regarding which date of ownership applies to the claim – the initial purchase by older generations, or the acquisition by the current owners. The Staff Report states:

“The claimant’s representative originally requested that the city waive the regulations back to 1985, the date that Conrad and Shirley Davis first acquired the property. However, under ORS 197.352 (8), the date of acquisition by the current owner is the pertinent date for determining if a code has restricted the use for the purpose of a waiver, removal or modification or a regulation.”

This issue may be one argued before the Council on Thursday.

I don’t see in the Staff Report any mention that the current rules on changing image signs were adopted in part for safety reasons. I was on the Planning Commission at the time. Three prominent video signs attracted the attention not only of passing motorists, but also of City Commissioner Charlie Hales. He believed, and the Planning Commission and Council agreed, that video signs are much more distracting than static billboards. It was a fascinating process to figure out how to ban them while honoring Oregon’s Constitutional requirement not to legislate the content of speech expressions; I think we provided a good result. As a side note, I’m interested to note that the video sign on the east end of the Morrision Bridge, one of the three causing the inital concern, has been removed despite being grandfathered at the time of adoption of the new code. I’d love to know why.

Anyway, returning to the Measure 37 claim on Thursday, I would have liked to have seen the safety exemption called out as an additional reason to deny this claim for a new, large, changing image sign by the freeway. I’ll be posting an update on Measure 37 claims processing in general in Portland, later this week.

Sorry, this isn’t a very Memorial Day-ish post. I worked the weekend, and didn’t have an opportunity before today to write up the details for this case after mentioning it in Next Up at City Council on Saturday. When you think about it, though, the issues this case raises – the principles of freedom of speech, rights of the community versus rights of individuals, and the direction we want Oregon to follow for the next century – are very relevant to Memorial Day. We honor the sacrifices of the past by learning from history and planning a better future for the children of the living and the dead.