Waguespack Tries Tweaking 'Mini-Billboard' Codes to No Avail

In the wake of the installation of several LED billboards which are now peppered beside Chicago's highways, new LED signs have, too, popped up on the North Side.

At 10-feet-by-10-feet, one of them is right in Lincoln Park on the side of a building at Fullerton and Janssen avenues, as well as one in the 44th Ward at the corner of Belmont Avenue and North Broadway.

The larger billboards are a result of an unrelated 20-year $180 billboard privatization deal that got the go-ahead in December, officials have said. Among the six aldermen voting against that plan was 32nd Ward Ald. Scott Waguespack, who recently issued a similarly disapproving statement regarding the new "mini-billboards."

" … Several companies are expanding their footprint as the City billboards deal is implemented," he said. "My office does not sign off on these mini-billboards if they are as of right, and the city code will not be changed despite several attempts by us to do so. If we were allowed to approve these, many would not go up, but those that are already approved will remain indefinitely."

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He said his office has fielded several calls about the signs, one of which is in nearby Bucktown at Milwaukee Avenue and Leavitt Street. He has encouraged residents expressing concerns about the sign to contact the groups working to turn the nearby property into a park and let them know how they feel.

"I told them, 'You all need to work together to make sure your opinions are heard,'" he said at the end of January. "It's just not something we're interested in seeing at that park."

Bucktown Community Organization President Steve Jensen is among those opposing the signs. He drafted a letter to the mayor to publicly state the group's position on the issue, and he has encouraged neighbors to do the same.

"The political issue of the privatization and all that stuff is lost on us, simply because we're the neighborhood group and we're directly affected by the brightness," Jensen told Patch at that time. "It doesn't matter to us whether they're privately or publicly owned. What matters to us is the impact that they have on the neighborhood."

Waguespack says he has yet to identify a way to prevent the signs from being erected.

"The code could be changed to require signs in any zoning district to be approved by aldermen, or we could force approval of any sign above a much smaller size," Waguespack said in his statement. "However, the City Corporation Counsel argues that the size and installation of such LED signage is a First Amendment right and companies are free to install as they wish."

The signs' brightness is also not enforced, he said, which has led to complaints about overly bright signage that "might as well compete with first-responder lights."

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