AB 2024: Outdoor advertising displays: permits: landscaped freeways: relocation agreements.

The Outdoor Advertising Act regulates placement of advertising displays adjacent to and within specified distances of highways that are part of the national system of interstate and defense highways and federal-aid highways. The act prohibits a person, as defined, from placing an advertising display within the areas affected by the act without a permit. The act prohibits the Department of Transportation from denying or delaying the acceptance of a permit application for a new advertising display along a portion of a new alignment of an interstate or primary highway on the basis that the highway project has not been accepted as complete if the section of highway is open to the use of the public for vehicular travel within 1,000 feet of the location specified in the permit application.

This bill would also prohibit the department from denying or delaying the review, processing, or determination of a permit application described above.

The act prohibits, except as provided, placing or maintaining an advertising display on property adjacent to a portion of a freeway that has a specified coverage area of landscaping or trees at the same or elevated grade of the main-traveled way, as provided. When a freeway has been classified as meeting these requirements, the act requires that classification to remain in effect until the department receives a request for a new classification review in accordance with applicable regulations. The act authorizes removal of an advertising display that violates that prohibition, as provided.

This bill would instead prohibit, except as provided, placing or maintaining an advertising display on property adjacent to a portion of a state highway that has a specified coverage area of landscaped vegetation, including, but not limited to, trees, with the landscaped vegetation planted at the same or elevated grade of the main-traveled way, as specified. This bill would require a request for a new classification review to identify the postmiles of a section of a freeway that does not meet the criteria for landscaped vegetation. The bill would instead authorize the relocation or removal, with payment of compensation, of an advertising display that violates that prohibition, as specified.

The act does not prohibit a local governmental entity from entering into an agreement to relocate an advertising display for any purpose. The act requires the department to issue a permit without any additional consideration for a display that is being placed pursuant to a relocation agreement with another governmental entity, as provided.

This bill would instead not prohibit any governmental entity from entering into a relocation agreement and would require the department to issue a permit, without any additional consideration and without requiring a local entity or state agency to pay compensation, for a display that is being placed pursuant to a relocation agreement with another governmental entity, as specified.