Scenic Houston has long been a strong advocate for a complete prohibition on off-premises digital signs, not only in the city of Houston and its outlying areas, but throughout rural Texas. Community stakeholders and local elected officials are also in agreement that the presence of high-intensity, frequently-changing digital billboards would blight the landscape in a manner never anticipated by the framers of Houston’s no-new-billboards ordinance.

As a result, in December 2008, Houston City Council reaffirmed the 1980 no-new-billboards ordinance, stating that any efforts to “modernize” existing billboards would cause them to be taken down. This action protects Houston from the onslaught of digital billboards that is plaguing other U.S. cities. In addition, Scenic Houston has recommended to the Administration that a moratorium on permits for on-premises (business) digital, changeable message signs is in order. Scenic Houston is currently participating in a Mayor-appointed task force recommending changes to the Sign Code, which was last updated in 1992.

A moratorium on permits would give time for the Task Force to propose its recommendations, and for City Council to act, without allowing new digital, changeable-message signs to crop up before a thoughtful policy is in place.