A. Subject to the consent of the land owner and the sign owner, a constitutionally protected noncommercial message of any type may be substituted, in whole or in part, in place of any commercial message or any other noncommercial message on a sign if the sign structure or mounting device is legal without consideration of message content. Similarly, an onsite commercial message may be substituted for another commercial message on an on-site sign if the substitution does not also involve a change of the physical structure or mounting device for the sign. Such message substitutions may be made without any additional approval or permitting.
B. The purposes of this section are to prevent any inadvertent favoring of commercial speech over noncommercial speech or of any particular noncommercial message over any other noncommercial message and to allow a change of commercial messages on an on-site sign without a new permit.
C. This section does not create a right to increase the total amount of signage on a parcel, nor does it affect the requirement that a sign structure or mounting device be properly permitted. This section does not allow the substitution of an off-site commercial message in place of an on-site commercial message or the conversion of a sign to general advertising for hire.
D. In addition to message substitution, whenever a parcel has a right to display area that is unused, that area may be used for constitutionally protected non-commercial messages on temporary signs, without permits or approvals; it may also be used for display of noncommercial messages on permanent structures, if the structure is properly permitted.
E. This section prevails over any more specific provision to the contrary within this chapter. (Ord. 2013-0025 § 1; Ord. 2007-083 § 1)