Outdoor Advertising Citichat 26 September 2008

CITICHAT 38/2008 - 26 September 2008


Outdoor Advertising -1

Received an e-mail yesterday morning from the National Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) inviting comment on the Draft Revised South African Manual for Outdoor Advertising Control (SAMOAC) which is available on the Department's website http://www.deat.gov.za The SAMOAC “constitutes only a framework and guidelines for outdoor advertising” and is to be adapted by local authorities to serve their own needs.



The Foreword contains a number of interesting comments such as “Outdoor advertising and information transfer fulfills an essential function in modern society. It directs guides and informs as to locality, product, activity or service and contributes to economic growth in general. However, if outdoor advertising is not controlled properly, it could have a very real impact on tourism resources and the human living environment as was experienced in countries such as the United States of America.



It addresses the ‘visual human environment’ as follows: “The visual environment also plays an important role in creating better human living environments for all communities in South Africa. Section 24 of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of South Africa states that “……everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or wellbeing….” The visual environment is a key to ensuring mental health and psychological well-being. It has an immense impact on how we think and act as human beings. Research has shown that the visual environment has a definite influence on human behavioural patterns such as vandalism, attitudes that determine the productivity of office workers or even the crime rate. It also plays an important role in creating healthy communities. A sense of place and identity is created by means of the visual environment that leads to community pride, a sense of security and permanent belonging, human dignity and enthusiastic citizen involvement.”



Whilst I don’t have any dispute, in general, with those lofty words, I really have to ask myself what sense of place and identity we are actually creating in the Johannesburg inner city through the medium of outdoor advertising? Community pride, a sense of security, permanent belonging, human dignity?????? No ways! I think we are providing messages that are directly opposed to those desirable attributes. After all, we must have more square metres advertising malt and liquor than any other city in the country! Much of it is displayed on the massive ‘wrap around’ advertising that disfigures or hides our local architecture – good, bad or indifferent as some of it may be. Some wrap-around advertising has draped empty inner city buildings for years with the owner earning more in advertising income than what could be earned from rentals were the building to be let. One example is the last building on the right hand side of Bertha Street, Braamfontein as one starts to drive across the Nelson Mandela Bridge. Actually, in that location, wrap around advertising on both sides of the street form the ‘gateway’ into Newtown which is quite disgusting.



This therefore became a subject raised and debated at the workshops that were the prelude to drawing up The Inner City Charter last year. The general feeling was that the inner city had increasingly become cluttered with inappropriate and tacky advertising signs attached to buildings. The debate ultimately culminated in the following three commitments being included in the Charter:



• By December 2007 the City of Johannesburg will review its current policy governing outdoor advertising and building wraps through a consultative process involving a range of stakeholders.

• As part of this review the City will introduce strict regulations prohibiting the full wrapping of buildings on a semi-permanent or permanent basis, in lieu of using the building for its established use.

• The City will make every effort to collect revenue from outdoor advertising due to it, with funds accruing from outdoor advertising in the Inner City being devoted to public environment upgrading in the area.



To give some background to the by-laws, in 2000 new advertising policies had been adopted by the now defunct Southern Metropolitan Local Council. The basic tenet of these by-laws was “To exempt outdoor adverting signs displayed in the Inner City from certain of the requirements of the Outdoor Advertising By-Laws and the Code of Practice by way of promoting the use of larger, colourful and vibrant outdoor advertising signs as a mechanism for urban regeneration.” Thus 15% of the rental derived from the advertising had to be “applied to an appropriate urban renewal initiative”. As far as I know that never ever happened. Then, in February 2007 new draft by-laws had been prepared and the intent was to amend the previous by-laws of 2000. This intent was published in April 2007. This evidently led to a great deal of input both from within and from outside the Council which led to a second draft of the by-laws being prepared. These were then further amended to take into consideration the Summit commitments and the new revised by-laws were published in the Provincial Gazette Extraordinary on the 13th June 2008 to be effective from 1 July.



The by-laws appear to be very extensive covering everything from signs suspended under verandas or canopies, projecting signs, pylon signs, advertising signs placed flat on buildings or bridges, sky signs, etc etc etc through to advertising on blimps!



The by-laws are very specific as to how one applies for outdoor advertising including specifying a multitude of supporting documentation that must accompany applications.



Once the application is made the applicant must advertise their intent in two local newspapers; display a notice for 21 days in a conspicuous place visible to the public on a street front of the property on which the proposed sign will be erected. Those fortunate enough to have seen the newspaper notice or the notice in the street, may make an objection to the proposal. Objectors must write to the Council which must consider the objection themselves and provide the applicant 14 days to reply to the objection. The Council must then also notify every interested party of their decision within 21 days including providing written reasons for their decision if requested.



In considering an application, the Council must: “have due regard to the compatibility of the proposed advertising sign with the environment and with the amenity of the immediate neighbourhood, urban design and streetscape…” and to whether the sign will “obscure any feature which in the opinion of the Council is a natural feature, architectural feature or visual line of civic, architectural, historical or heritage significance or in the Council’s opinion, be unsightly or objectionable or detrimentally impact on the architectural design of any building on the property concerned or any adjacent property.”



The owner of the property on the other hand “must ensure that such sign is designed or located so as not to be detrimental to the nature of the streetscape, urban design or detract from the architecture of any building on which or where such sign is to be located, by reason of abnormal size, appearance, intensity of illumination workmanship design or its existence



I couldn’t find the Charter commitment that “strict regulations prohibiting the full wrapping of buildings on a semi-permanent or permanent basis, in lieu of using the building for its established use” incorporated in the by-laws. The only reference in regard to ‘wrap around signs’ (not called such in the bylaws) seems to be that “The total area of an advertising sign placed flat or painted on a wall of a building may not exceed 20m2 for every 15m2 of frontage of the building concerned facing a public street. Nor may it exceed 40m2 in extent in an area of partial control and 80m2 in an area of minimum control if “on-premises” advertising or 80m2 and 200m2 respectively if “third party” advertising. The issue of ‘areas of control’ is set out separately in an attached schedule to the by-laws. The classification of the areas of control for outdoor advertising are based on the current and (near) future zoning of the property concerned. (Don’t ask what that means, I haven’t a clue!) The areas are “Natural Landscape” and “Rural Landscape” which are subject to maximum control; and then Urban Areas of Maximum Control, Partial Control and Minimum Control.



Urban areas of Maximum Control are “precincts deemed sensitive to visual control”(e.g. natural open spaces, residential areas, architectural and historic sites and heritage and protected areas, etc) Urban areas of Partial Control are “in most cases characterized by a greater degree of integration and complexity of land use, facilities and activities that allows for limited freedom with regard to size, number and position of advertisements” (e.g. Shopping centres, educational institutions, sports fields, government enclaves, etc). Urban areas of Minimum Control are “centres, areas and nodes of concentrated economic activity where the dominant concern and motivation is to conduct business and to sell products and services. This calls for the display of advertisements and signs in stronger and more obvious form” (e.g.Commercial districts, industrial areas entertainment districts, etc) The physical areas will have to be determined by the Council and am sure that this will create much argument!



Greater sizes than those quoted may be entertained “if it is in the interests of the aesthetic appearance of the building” or, and here the third Charter Commitment seems to be covered, “if it is in the Inner City, as indicated in the Council’s Spatial Development Framework, of the area of jurisdiction of the Council where an urban renewal programme on the said building or area concerned as determined by Council, is being undertaken and the approval of such sign is subject to an annual prescribed financial contribution to be utilized for an Inner City Renewal Project” ????? I assume this means that the annual contribution of R100.00 per square metre of advertising display shall be payable to a regeneration project (public or private) from advertising proceeds of any approved sign.



I thought we were re-looking at by-laws to make them more simple but this doesn’t appear to be the case with outdoor advertising! Next week we’ll try to have a look at what all this means in terms of what exists at the moment in the Inner City. Ending with another quote from SAMOAC:



“Managing outdoor advertising sufficiently is important in order to prevent the deterioration of the aesthetic environment which forms an important tourism resource, contributes to healthy psychological living environments and increases property values. Uncontrolled outdoor advertising may also have various other negative impacts such as contributing to light and sound pollution, increasing traffic safety problems, creating occupational health risks and displaying advertising messages that may be indecent or prejudicial to public morals. On the other hand, outdoor advertisements and signs have various economic and functional benefits and well-designed advertising structures, such as street furniture, may even enhance streetscapes and other aesthetic resources.”



Ciao, neil



PS Forgot to tell you the most important issue from last week’s Western Cape travels – the crime in the country towns I mentioned is remarkably low. In fact, in one place we visited, the police station operates only on weekdays and then only between 07h00 and 18h00!