One of Tacoma’s most hated billboards isn’t going anywhere

One of Tacoma’s most hated billboards is not going anywhere, despite the city’s recent settlement agreement with outdoor advertising giant Lamar.

The 46-foot structure that towers over Memo’s Mexican Food near the intersection of South Sprague and Division avenues is not subject to the agreement, which capped the number of billboard faces Lamar is allowed to operate in Tacoma and imposes other restrictions on the signs.

Why? Because Lamar doesn’t own it, nor three other nonconforming billboards in other parts of town.

Those signs will be allowed to stay up if their owners follow provisions of the city’s new sign code, including applying for a new permit.

“The ordinance that was passed at the end of last year includes a provision that allows billboard owners to apply for a permit that would establish the lawful height of the billboard as the existing height — so whatever the height is now of that billboard, if they take advantage of this provision in the ordinance, then the height would be a lawful height as it’s currently erected,” said Chris Bacha, a deputy city attorney.

When the Tacoma City Council approved a settlement agreement with Lamar, it included a provision that 111 billboard faces considered nonconforming be removed in the next five years. Lamar will be able to replace many of those billboards in newly designated billboard receiving zones, mostly in commercial areas along arterial streets.

In the settlement agreement, the city and the company agree not to sue each other, and Lamar gets to have a maximum of 225 billboard faces in the city, a total reduction of 69 from the 294 it had when the agreement was struck. Many billboards would be removed and replaced: They will be barred from residential, shoreline, conservation and historic districts, keeping the signage mainly to arterial streets in mixed-used and commercial districts. The revised sign code also restricts the height of billboards, depending on where they’re located, to between 32 and 45 feet.

The four billboard structures not owned by Lamar aren’t part of that agreement.

The one at Memo’s, which several readers have asked about, stands out as an eyesore for many — especially for those who live near it — and is noticeable for its height and size. It doesn’t conform to the current code regulations for size, height, dispersal (distance between billboards), distance from other uses and design, according to city planning staff. It’s close to a residential neighborhood, a school and a historic property.

Lamar manages that billboard, but it’s owned by Dale Reed and Jon Ketler, who co-own the triangle-shaped property where Memo’s sits. Attempts to reach both Reed and Ketler were unsuccessful. The city said they also own another billboard that’s 48 feet tall near Pacific Avenue and South 48th Street.

The billboard at Memo’s was permitted in 1989, years before the fight over billboards began in Tacoma and when the city’s code wasn’t as explicit about the signs. Even then, it was taller than the code allowed — but the city didn’t check the billboard’s height for compliance at the time of the final building permit, which city planning staff said focused primarily on the footings, foundation and fasteners.

“Most of the items that are nonconforming on it were not regulations (when it was built), like the size of the sign, the dispersal, the buffers, design requirements of subsequent regulations were not in play in January of 1989 when the permit was taken out on the sign,” said John Harrington, principal planner for the city.

There was a time when it seemed co-owner Reed was worried it would have to come down. According to The News Tribune archives, in 2011 the City Council voted to tighten zoning restrictions on billboards and ban digital billboards. The council also set a date for when nonconforming billboards would have to be taken down.

“We bought commercial property under codes that allowed us to make this income,” Reed told the newspaper at the time. “The bigger story here is that the city is arbitrarily taking value away from property owners.”

His billboard never came down, and there is no history of litigation between the city and its owners.

Enforcement actions against nonconforming signs “were on hold” for years while the city was locked in a legal battle over billboards with then-owner Clear Channel, said Bacha, the deputy city attorney.

The most recent edit of the city’s sign code removed an amortization provision that would have required nonconforming billboards to be removed. Now that a revised sign code is in place and the agreement with Lamar has been approved, the owners of the Memo’s billboard and the other nonconforming billboards will get a chance to make their existing height lawful — even if the sign is far taller than the code allows.

“Other than the height issue, it was in conformance when constructed with all other requirements in place at that time,” Bacha said of the Memo’s billboard.

The owners have until June 30, 2019 to apply for that permit.

This story was originally published January 20, 2018 at 9:00 AM with the headline "One of Tacoma’s most hated billboards isn’t going anywhere."