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LA OLYMPICS - On Tuesday, the Council’s PLUM committee approved the Olympics Streamlining Ordinance (“OSO”) – a measure to allow Olympics-related projects to skirt all planning and zoning requirements to expedite the construction of facilities deemed “essential” for the Olympics and Paralympics Games. That includes avoiding review requirements under any Specific Plan, Supplemental District, Redevelopment Plan, or Special Zone.
Recognizing that time is running short and that construction of events-related facilities needs to be expedited, there is good reason to advance such a motion.
However, as is often the case, the devil is in the details and, in this case, it seems the devil has infiltrated the process as related to billboards. This measure has been hijacked to serve at least one special interest group – billboard advertising companies and their allies who have long sought to blanket the city with their digital billboards.
The initial draft of the OSO included a list of items that would not be permitted to be expedited by the streamlining measure. Those installations would still need to comply with the City’s existing rules and laws. Included in that list was: OFF-SITE SIGNAGE ON PRIVATE PROPERTY OUTSIDE OF AN APPROVED SIGN DISTRICT. (“Off-site signage” is a billboard advertising something located elsewhere.)
Yet, at some point, that important exemption to protect the City from an invasion of digital billboards was removed. Who was responsible for that you may ask! What possible line of thinking could lead to the conclusion that the construction of an unlimited number and unregulated placement of digital billboards across the city is “essential to the successful delivery of the Games?”
With the removal of this critical exemption, the protections provided by the 2002 Citywide Sign Ordinance will no longer be in force for these signs, which will likely open the door to legal challenges. Billboards will no longer be restricted to regulated Sign Districts. Communities that have adopted Specific Plans, Land Use Plans, overlay districts, NODS, PODS and other planning devices that limit or prohibit advertising billboards on private property in their areas will be nullified –essentially overruled for so-called Olympics-related billboards. This Olympics measure overrides all.
The process to convert temporary installations to permanent ones is part of the ordinance. And, if a digital billboard is allowed to be built under the auspices of this proposed OSO, it is highly likely (and expected) that the outdoor advertising company and private property owner on whose land the sign is located will make every effort to lobby the City Council to allow it to remain and be made permanent. The ad companies will likely offer the City a share of their ad revenues to help justify their signs being made permanent, and the City will remind us that it is broke and needs the money.
But money does not begin to address the individual or cumulative impacts of digital billboards that could be made permanent, that would operate day and night along our streets, blinding or at least distracting drivers, shining into our eyes, our bedrooms, our patios and yards, our parks and open spaces…and our minds.
Before the 2002 Citywide Sign Ordinance was passed, the City was littered with thousands of illegal billboards. LA Weekly published a series of articles, including “Billboards Gone Wild: 4,000 Illegal Billboards Choke L.A.’s Neighborhood. Is City Hall Corrupt or Just Inept?” LINK KCET investigated billboard blight in a series of programs titled: “Billboard Confidential.” Citizens across the City rallied to support the establishment of the 2002 Sign Ordinance, and it has made a huge difference in limiting the placement of new billboards and in furthering the removal of old billboard stock.
The CSO’s adoption upended the actions of the outdoor advertising industry that for too long did whatever it wanted, wherever it wanted. The introduction of new billboards was banned, with the exception of those permitted in defined, contiguous sign districts that operate under guidelines established with community input.
But unless the City Council modifies the OSO, it appears that outdoor advertising companies will once again be able to erect new billboards in any location, including in existing specifically prohibited locations, by claiming that they are related to and essential to the Games.
The purpose of the removal of the exemption for off-site signage on private property outside of an approved sign district in the OSO appears to have been specifically done to create a mechanism to allow digital billboard construction without any opportunity for the public to voice opposition. The removal of the exemption will allow advertising companies--who often donate free ad space to candidates running for office, and who can also donate ad space to the challenger of an elected who speaks out against billboard operators--to at long last freely litter our city with new digital billboards.
This is not an Olympics legacy we want. This is not an Olympics legacy we should allow.
There is no good reason or rationale to allow digital billboards to proliferate across the City. These are not "temporary" structures to be easily removed once installed. They would continue to degrade the visual environment for decades, blowing through all the protections created by our communities and the City over decades of joint effort. They will invade residences, nearby businesses, parks and open spaces with their ever-changing strobe-light intrusion, delivering what those who have lived near them refer to as a 24/7 digital sunrise effect (in this case 20/7).
Also, very concerning in terms of the City’s fiscal woes, these additional billboards will undermine the City's own advertising programs as they would take away revenues from the Sidewalk and Transit Amenities Program (STAP) and future Convention Center billboards (needed to support construction costs) as they compete for what is called “out-of-home” advertising dollars. Meanwhile, the new billboards deliver none of the tangible benefits of the City’s programs for Angelenos, leaving the City’s STAP program, which is designed to provide much-needed shade and shelter for the city’s transit riders, to compete with these additional digital billboards for ad dollars, seriously compromising the commitment the City made to transit riders.
On-site wayfinding signage is not being questioned. And if off-site messaging is also needed, the City can enlist existing digital installation vendors to broadcast messages to Olympics attendees under their contractual obligation to provide public service messaging. Also, as most travelers carry cell phones, an Olympics messaging app will surely be created, which will also provide timely messaging.
Should it somehow be determined that specific and defined new off-site signage is deemed to be essential for the Games, then the OSO must be amended to indicate that such signage is not eligible to be converted to permanent status under any circumstances.
Of great concern, it does not appear that the City can adopt the OSO as a measure exempt from CEQA and environmental review based upon Public Resource Code section 21080, subdivision (b)(7) and CEQA Guidelines section 15272, as both amended in 2025 by Assembly Bill 149. The OSO, as proposed, far exceeds the scope of the statutory exemption for temporary facilities, which does not extend to permanent projects; thus, the ordinance is not exempt from CEQA and environmental review.
It would be far easier to return the exemption for off-site signage back into the OSO. Then our hosting of the Games could truly have a positive impact on Los Angeles and for Angelenos – rather than for outdoor advertising companies, their lobbyists and allies.
Contact the City Council and your Councilmember to tell them to return the off-site ad sign exemption to the Olympics Streamlining Ordinance (Council File 15-0989-S47).
Please also enter a comment in the Council File 15-0989-S47
(Barbara Broide is Co-President of the Coalition for a Beautiful Los Angeles (formerly known as Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight). She is a local community activist serving as President of the Westwood South of Santa Monica Blvd. HOA and is an elected member of the Westside Neighborhood Council Board.)
