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Council weighs moving sign rules into zoning, discusses billboard ban and political-sign limits
Summary
City staff proposed moving sign regulations into the zoning appendix and asked council to confirm whether to restrict billboards and to clarify rules for political and temporary signs; legal counsel flagged first‑amendment and extraterritorial‑jurisdiction (ETJ) issues and recommended edits.
City staff proposed on March 18 to move most sign regulations from Chapter 78 into the zoning ordinance as an appendix to make district-specific rules easier to maintain and to eliminate inconsistent cross-references.
City attorney Cynthia Trevino told council the city has home‑rule authority to regulate signs but that the current draft mixes general sign rules with zoning‑specific provisions. "If these are regulations that make sense across the city, you can say ... these are time, place, and manner regulations for all signs," Cynthia said. She advised relocating district-specific sign limits into the zoning code or attaching them as an appendix and to verify the codifier’s table of contents.
Councilmembers raised two priorities: (1) whether to prohibit or tightly limit roadside billboards inside the city and in the extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ), and (2) how to treat political and issue‑oriented signs. Jessica (planning staff) said the draft did not previously restrict commercial billboards in many locations and that adding restrictions — including an outright ban inside city limits or ETJ — would require checking the city’s authority and any necessary county agreement for ETJ enforcement. Legal counsel said state law provides a path for a city to extend sign regulations into its ETJ but that staff must confirm statutory conditions.
Council asked staff to verify whether school digital signs and marquee displays would be compliant with revised rules and to align the political-sign definition in the draft with other code sections and state law. Cynthia warned that enforcement of signs with political content raises First Amendment issues and recommended focusing on time, place and manner (for example: size, illumination, duration) rather than content when drafting enforceable rules.
No ordinance vote was taken; staff will move sign‑district language into the zoning appendix, verify school signs and ETJ authority, and return with updated text for readings.
