AN ACT Relating to advertising signs; and adding a new chapter to Title 19 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, the definitions in this section apply throughout this chapter.

(1) "On-premises advertising displays" means any structure, housing, sign, device, figure, statuary, painting, display, message placard, or other contrivance, or any part thereof, which has been designed, constructed, created, intended, or engineered to have a useful life of fifteen years or more, and intended or used to advertise, or to provide data or information in the nature of advertising, for any of the following purposes:

(a) To designate, identify, or indicate the name or business of the owner or occupant of the premises upon which the advertising display is located; or

(b) To advertise the business conducted, services available or rendered, or the goods produced, sold, or available for sale, upon the property where the advertising display has been lawfully erected.

(2) "Introduced or adopted prior to January 1, 1990," means an ordinance or other regulation of a city or county which was officially presented before, formally read and announced by, or adopted by the legislative body prior to January 1, 1990.

(3) "Illegal advertising displays" do not include legally erected, but nonconforming, displays for which the applicable amortization period has not expired.

(4) "Abandoned advertising display" means any display remaining in place or not maintained for a period of ninety days which no longer advertises or identifies an ongoing business, product, or service available on the business premise where the display is located.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. Except as provided in this chapter, no on-premises advertising display which is used for any of the purposes set forth in section 1 of this act shall be compelled to be removed or abated, and its customary maintenance, use, or repair shall not be limited, whether or not removal or limitation is required because of any ordinance or regulation of any city or county, without the payment of fair and just compensation.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. Any city or county adopting, modifying, or amending any ordinance or regulation after January 1, 1990, which regulates or prohibits the use of any on-premises advertising display shall include provisions in that ordinance, regulation, or amendment for the inventorying and identification of illegal or abandoned advertising displays within its jurisdiction.

The inventory and identification shall commence within six months from the date of adoption of the ordinance or regulation. Within sixty days after the six-month period, the city or county shall commence abatement of the identified preexisting illegal and abandoned on-premises advertising displays.

This section does not apply to the adoption or amendment of an ordinance if that new ordinance or amendment is limited in its effect to regulating the construction of new on-premises advertising displays. A new on-premises advertising display means, for purposes of this section, a display whose structure or housing has not been affixed to its intended premises. Construction means, for purposes of this section, the manufacturing or creation of a new on-premises advertising display.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. A city or county may impose reasonable fees upon all owners or lessees of on-premises business advertising displays for the purpose of covering its actual cost of inventorying and identifying illegal or abandoned advertising displays which are within its jurisdiction.

The actual cost may be fixed upon a determination of the total estimated reasonable cost, the amount of which and the fee to be charged is exclusively within the discretion of the city or county.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. (1) Fair and just compensation is presumed to be paid upon the payment of the fair market value of the on-premises advertising display as of the date written notice is given to the owner of the display requiring conformance or removal.

Fair market value consists of the actual cost of removal for the display, the actual cost to repair any damage caused to the real property or improvements thereon as a result of the removal of the display, and the actual cost to duplicate the advertising display required to be removed as of the date written notice requiring removal for nonconformance is given to the owner by the governmental body requiring conformance or removal.

(2) As an alternative to payment of fair and just compensation under subsection (1) of this section, a city or county may pay fair and just compensation to the owner of the on-premises advertising display by paying the actual replacement cost to the owner for an on-premises advertising display which conforms with the laws in effect that are applicable to the owner's business premises, and shall include, as part of the actual replacement cost, the actual cost for removal of the nonconforming on-premises advertising display and the actual cost of the repair to the real property caused by the removal of the display.

(3) The sum payable as fair and just compensation to the owner of any on-premises advertising display shall be the greater of the two methods provided in subsection (1) or (2) of this section as the basis for fair and just compensation. In any event, before any on-premises advertising display is required to be removed, the fair and just compensation required shall be paid.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. (1) The ordinances and regulations of any city or county, introduced or adopted prior to January 1, 1990, which have provided for amortization, and which make nonconforming any lawfully in-place, erected, on-premises advertising displays, shall not be subject to section 2 of this act.

(a) All on-premises advertising displays which become nonconforming as a result of any ordinance or regulation are presumed illegal once the amortization period provided by the ordinance or regulation rendering them nonconforming has lapsed and conformance has not been accomplished.

(b) If property containing on-premises advertising displays is annexed to a city or county which introduced or adopted, prior to January 1, 1990, an ordinance regulating on-premises advertising displays, the city or county may apply its ordinance or regulation to the annexed property, and the display shall be deemed illegal upon expiration of any applicable amortization provided by such ordinance or regulation. The amortization period is deemed to commence in such event upon the date of annexation.

(c) When amortization has not been provided in any applicable preexisting ordinance, annexed nonconforming displays ordered to conform to ordinances or regulations of any city or county shall be subject to the requirements of section 2 of this act.

(2) Amendments or modifications to ordinances or regulations of any city or county adopted prior to January 1, 1990, including amendments which require removal of additional displays or displays which had previously been made conforming, shall be subject to the requirements of section 2 of this act if the amendment or modification makes the ordinance being amended or modified more restrictive or prohibitive.

(3) Ordinances or regulations of any city or county introduced or adopted prior to January 1, 1990, which have terminated or will terminate, may be reenacted and are not subject to section 2 of this act if reenacted within twelve months of their termination, and if upon reenactment they are not made more restrictive or prohibitive than the preexisting ordinance or regulation.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. A city or county whose ordinances or regulations are introduced or adopted after January 1, 1990, and any amendments or modifications to those ordinances and regulations, are not in violation of section 2 of this act if the entity elects to require the removal without compensation of any on-premises advertising display which meets all of the following requirements:

(1) The display is located within an area shown as residential or agricultural on a local planning document as of the date the display was lawfully erected;

(2) The display is located within an area zoned for residential or agricultural use on the date the display was lawfully erected;

(3) The display is not required to be removed because of an overlay zone, combining zone, special sign zone, or any other special zoning district whose primary purpose is the removal or control of advertising displays; or

(4) The display is allowed to remain in existence after January 1, 1990, for a period of fifteen years from the date of adoption of the ordinance or regulation. For purposes of this section, every sign has a useful life of fifteen years. Fair and just compensation for signs required to be removed during the fifteen-year period and before the amortization period has lapsed shall be entitled to fair and just compensation which is equal to one-fifteenth of the duplication cost of construction of the display being removed multiplied by the number of years of useful life remaining for the sign as determined by this section.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. A city or county with an ordinance or regulation introduced or adopted prior to January 1, 1990, which is applicable to designated areas within the city or county less than the entire city or county is not in violation of section 2 of this act for an ordinance or regulation introduced or adopted on or after January 1, 1990, even though it requires removal of on-premises advertising displays in additional portions of the city or county, if the city or county adopts not more than two of these ordinances or regulations on or after January 1, 1990, and if the total effect of the ordinance or regulation is to apply to less than the entire city or county, and the new ordinance or regulation provides reasonable amortization for conformance. "Reasonable amortization," for purposes of this section, shall not be less than fifteen years from the date each ordinance or regulation was adopted. If these conditions are not met, the city or county is subject to section 2 of this act with respect to all those ordinances and regulations.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 9. A city or county whose ordinances or regulations are otherwise in full compliance with section 2 of this act is not in violation of that section if it elects to deactivate, without compensation, any flashing or rotating features of the on-premises advertising display, unless the flashing or rotating feature of the display has been designated as historically significant.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 10. (1) A city or county whose ordinances or regulations were introduced or adopted after January 1, 1990, or any amendments to those ordinances and regulations, is not in violation of section 2 of this act if it elects to require the removal, without compensation, of any on-premises advertising display which meets any of the following criteria:

(a) Any advertising display erected without first complying with all ordinances and regulations in effect at the time of its construction and erection or use;

(b) Any advertising display which was lawfully erected anywhere in this state, but whose use has ceased, or the structure upon which the display is mounted has been abandoned by its owner, for a period of not less than ninety days. Costs incurred in removing an abandoned display may be charged to the legal owner;

(c) Any advertising display which has been more than fifty percent destroyed, the destruction is other than facial copy replacement, and the display cannot be repaired within thirty days of the date of its destruction;

(d) Any advertising display whose owner, outside of a change of copy, requests permission to remodel and remodels that advertising display, or expand or enlarge the building or land use upon which the advertising display is located, and the display is affected by the construction, enlargement, or remodeling, or the cost of construction, enlargement, or remodeling of the advertising display exceeds fifty percent of the cost of reconstruction of the building;

(e) Any advertising display whose owner seeks relocation and relocates the advertising display;

(f) Any advertising display for which there has been an agreement between the advertising display owner and the city or county, for its removal as of any given date;

(g) Any advertising display which is temporary;

(h) Any advertising display which is or may become a danger to the public or is unsafe; or

(i) Any advertising display which constitutes a traffic hazard not created by relocation of streets or highways or by acts of any city or county.

(2)(a) Ordinances adopted by a city within three years of its incorporation, which incorporation occurs after January 1, 1990, shall not be subject to section 2 of this act except as provided by section 6 of this act.

(b) For any city or county incorporated after January 1, 1990, an ordinance initially adopted within three years of incorporation, or any amendment thereto within that three-year period, may require removal without compensation, except that no removal without compensation may be required within fifteen years from the effective date of that ordinance or amendment.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 11. (1) Sections 2 and 7 of this act do not apply to planned commercial districts, areas listed or eligible for listing on the national register of historical places, areas registered as a state historical landmark or point of historical interest, or areas created as historic zones or individually designated properties by a city or county.

(2) As used in this section, "planned commercial districts" means areas subject to binding agreements, including, but not limited to, conditions, covenants, and restrictions, which do all of the following:

(a) Affect on-premises advertising displays;

(b) Are at least as restrictive as any ordinance of a city or county, which affects on-premises advertising displays at the time the agreement was entered into; and

NEW SECTION. Sec. 12. A city or county may not deny, refuse to issue, or condition the issuance of a business license or a permit to construct a new, legal, on-premises advertising display upon the removal, conformance, repair, modification, or abatement of any other on-premises advertising display on the same real property where the business is to be or has been maintained if both of the following apply:

(1) The other display is located within the same commercial complex which is zoned for commercial occupancy or use, but at a different business location from that for which the permit or license is sought; and

(2) The other display is not owned or controlled by the permit applicant, and the permit applicant is not the agent of the person who owns or controls the other display.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 13. (1) During the amortization period for a nonconforming, legally in-place, on-premises advertising display's continued use, a city or county may not deny, refuse to issue, or condition the issuance of a permit for modification or alteration to the display upon change of ownership of any existing business if the modification or alteration does not include a structural change in the display.

(2) Subsection (1) of this section does not apply to any ordinance introduced or adopted prior to January 1, 1990, or adopted under section 10(2)(a) of this act if the ordinance contains no specific amortization schedule, but instead requires conformity upon change of ownership.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 14. A city or county shall not require the removal of any on-premises advertising display on the basis of its height or size by requiring conformance with any ordinance or regulation introduced or adopted on or after January 1, 1990, if special topographic circumstances would result in a material impairment of visibility of the display or the owner's or user's ability to adequately and effectively continue to communicate with the public through the use of the display. Under these circumstances, the owner or user may maintain the advertising display at the business premises and at a location necessary for continued public visibility at the height or size at which the display was previously erected and, in doing so, the owner or user is in conformance.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 15. Sections 1 through 14 of this act shall constitute a new chapter in Title 19 RCW.