By Katie Northcott, News Director
The Shelbyville Board of Zoning Appeals denied an application for a sign code variance that would allow a billboard to be erected at 716 N. Main St. in Shelbyville.
Property owners Nguyen Vu Anh and Giau Thi Huynh Lam applied for the variance with Michael Sutherland of Scotty Outdoor, LLC acting as their representative. The claim was based on other billboards in the area being in violation of sign code, the neighborhood having changed in development, and 716 N. Main St. being a highly visible and beneficial location for advertisement.
The Shelbyville sign code requires that billboards be no less than 600ft apart. 716 N. Main St. is too close to a billboard to erect a billboard in compliance with the code.
The application only met two of the eight variance standards applicable to the situation. City Planner Tom Batchelor explained that a variance had been granted for 208 Madison St. in September. The property was not suitable for a building and likely would have remained vacant unless it was used for a billboard. This is not the case with the N. Main St. property.
Batchelor presented the Board with a history of signage regulation dating back to Lady Bird’s Law in 1965.
“There’s a lot of cases related to signage,” Batchelor said. “There’s always a lot of controversy related to signage.”
Multiple cities in the area are struggling to find the best way to regulate signs and avoid sign pollution. City Attorney Ginger Shofner suggested that the city may want to consider bringing its sign code into alignment with Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) code.
The TDOT code says that a billboard may be no closer than 600 ft to another billboard on the same side of a right of way. The Shelbyville code states that a billboard may be no closer than 600 ft to any other billboard.
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