Scenic Saint Paul

Yes. The following Minnesota cities ban new billboards. Many have none. Shoreview, Minnetonka, Afton, Linwood, White Bear Lake, Lilydale, Arden Hills, Andover, Stillwater, Bayport, Little Canada, White Bear Township, West Lakeland, Stacy, Birchwood Village, Dellwood, Newport, Mathomedi, South Saint Paul, Saint Paul, West Saint Paul, Grant, Gem Lake, Centerville, Maplewood, Eagan, North Saint Paul, Falcon Heights, Forest Lake, Roseville, Oakdale, Saint Anthony Village, Scandia, St. Mary's Point, Vadnais Heights, Saint Paul Park, Hastings, Grey Cloud, New Brighton, Lake St. Croix Beach, Lakeland, Hampton, Cottage Grove, Landfall, Lauderdale, Deephaven, Brooklyn Center, Edina, Golden Valley, Maple Grove, St. Louis Park, Wayzata, Woodbury, Apple Valley.
Four states ban all billboards: Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont.

Billboards are considered personal property. So parking a billboard on the corner is no different than leaving your radio (personal property) or your car (personal property) or your shoe (personal property) on the corner. That being the case, neither the city nor the state receive any income from the billboards unless the city/state happens to own the property the billboard is parked on, at which time the industry pays the property owner for the privilege of parking on their land.
The owner of the land/building receive some money for the privilege of parking the billboard.

In the case of Saint Paul neighborhood boards, the annual lease payment is chump change, in the vicinity of $2,000 per year. Leases are as long as 15 years. In the case of roof top signs, the industry usually also pays for roof repair since the billboards and the traffic on the roof to work on them does very significant damage to the roof.

Freeway boards and some neighborhood boards. The Met Council owns the land on which the 5 billboard faces are located, at the bus barn site on Snelling and I-94. They receive income of about $30,000 per year per face. These billboards could prove to be a huge problem for re-development.

At the time a billboard is built or in the case of major repairs, the company must get appropriate permits and there are fees for the permits. There are no annual fees or taxes that the billboard companies pay to the city or the county.

Several years ago, Saint Paul required an annual license fee of $100 per board with the revenue going to pay for an inspector who would inspect the boards. Not long before this ordinance was passed, St. Paul had experienced several storms during which billboard parts blew off and were flying from the sky into neighborhoods. So, the city decided to be proactive and do some safety and compliance inspections. The industry sued the city and prevailed on the first round. The City agreed not to appeal the case even though a nearly identical suit had been decided in favor of the City in a California case.

Former Governor Carlson wanted to have a tax on billboards based on number of cars that pass by. His theory was that the billboards had no value unless the state provided them with some traffic. That being the case, the state should essentially get a 'finders fee' for the customers delivered to their advertising message. He wanted the revenues to be spent to buy-out billboards on state highways.

The city and county are only allowed to tax things that the state gives them permission to tax. The property tax is the city and county's primary source of tax revenue. The state gave the city permission to increase the sales tax, called the city sales tax, several years ago. Personal property is not taxed in Minnesota except at the time of sale, and that is a sales tax. Billboards under state law are considered personal property.

Cap and replace is the industry term for this type of exchange and is the billboard industry's preferred method of dealing with small billboards in low income/low traffic areas. They would prefer to get rid of low income boards and trade up to larger, high income boards. That translates to freeway or arterial streets. There are numerous of problems with cap and replace. Cap and replace is predicated on the belief that someone wants to get rid of the billboards in their neighborhood and some other community actually wants them. In Saint Paul, no one does. Every community council has passed resolutions opposing new billboards in their area. While one C.C. might not object to a new one in someone else's back yard, they certainly do not want them in their own.

Once a billboard is erected on a federal highway, it is protected by the Federal Highway Beautification Act. This is the Lady Bird Johnson law which was hijacked by the billboard industry shortly after LBJ left office. Now, instead of it protecting scenic views, it protects billboards. Once a billboard is on a federal highway, it is virtually impossible to get it removed, unless the highway itself moves.

State law regulates how close together billboards can be on the highways. In St. Paul, there are already as many as there can legally be, with the possible exception of one location on the East side.

Saint Paul had a cap and replace ordinance in place for over ten years. When a nonconforming billboard (neighborhood board) came down, the industry could use the 'sign credits' from removing it to put up a bigger board at a better location. When the city finally did away with the cap and replace ordinance, every billboard company had a stack of billboard credits which expired because there were no new locations where they could put one up. In other words, Saint Paul is full. Saint Paul has no room to put more billboards unless we want to put them on University Avenue and the 35E parkway. Community groups trying to fix up University Avenue want fewer, not more, billboards and they consider the existing billboards to be a barrier to redevelopment and revitalization.. The neighbors who sued to prevent 35-E from being a freeway would not settle for billboards marring the parkway.