The advertising company’s contract expired last year and has since been working with the city on a new deal.
“It’s pretty hard to turn down 15 for one,” Councilman Dave Weaver said during the meeting. “[It] makes a lot of sense.”
Most of the 15 billboards are along the San Fernando Road Corridor, a primarily industrial area the city officials have been working for years to redevelop.
A similar extension in 2003 required Clear Channel to get rid of 18 billboards along San Fernando Road, Development Services Director Philip Lanzafame said.
Clear Channel and other advertising companies currently own 53 billboards in the city, so the removal of 15 will reduce the total to 38, City Manager Jim Starbird said.
Clear Channel’s foothold in the Glendale market, as a result of the deal, will then be reduced from 23 to eight billboards, he said.
Within the span of six years, 38 billboards will have been removed throughout the city, officials said.
City officials have been trying for years to remove and limit the number of billboards, Neighborhood Services Administrator Sam Engel said.
The city has taken photos of all the billboards to ensure the displays don’t change in size and brightness, he said.
A city ordinance prohibits erecting new billboards, but displays installed before the regulation was passed were allowed to remain until they’re removed.
Unlike Los Angeles, where city officials have been under pressure from neighborhood community groups to more strictly regulate billboard and so-called super-graphic adverts, Glendale does not allow digital displays. Residents raised concerns about the billboards being large distractions and adding to neighborhood blight, officials said.
While City Council members acknowledged those concerns, they said that at this point, removing 15 billboards was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
