(a) Purpose and intent. It is the purpose of this article that a comprehensive system of sign regulations is hereby adopted to assure proper expression through visual communications involving signs that are compatible with the character and environment of this community to promote the growth of the City in an orderly, efficient, and attractive manner. It is further declared that these regulations serve to reveal a great deal about the community's pride and morale, aesthetic level, vitality, diversity, originality, culture, and sense of order, giving it a distinctive appearance and reinforcing the character of the Conejo Valley in its natural setting as adopted in the General Plan. Such standards shall be uniformly applied to promote fairness in competition and retain identity within the business community. It is further determined that these regulations in and by themselves cannot achieve the end result desired unless the community voluntarily upholds these conditions within an atmosphere of responsible freedom, utilizing principles of good design and mutual cooperation. Minimum standards are provided to safeguard the life, health, property, and public welfare by regulating and controlling the design quality of materials and the construction, illumination, location, and maintenance of all signs, sign structures, and billboards, and at the same time attempting to provide functional flexibility, encourage variety, and create an incentive to relate signing to the basic principles of good design while trying to eliminate visual blight.
(b) Message neutrality. It is the policy of the City of Thousand Oaks to regulate signs in a manner that does not favor commercial speech over non-commercial speech, and that does not regulate protected non-commercial speech by message content.
(c) Message substitution policy. Subject to the private property owner's consent, a constitutionally protected non-commercial message of any category or content may be substituted, in whole or in part, for any allowed commercial message or any other protected non-commercial message, provided that the sign structure or mounting device is legal without consideration of message content. Such substitution of message may be made without any additional approval or permitting. The purpose of this provision is to prevent any favoring of commercial speech over non-commercial speech, or favoring of any particular protected non-commercial message over any other protected non-commercial message. Message substitution is a continuing right which may be exercised any number of times. The message substitution right does not:
(1) Create a right to increase the total amount of sign display area on a site or parcel;
(2) Create a right to substitute an off-site commercial message in place of an on-site commercial message or in place of a non-commercial message;
(3) Affect the requirement that a sign structure or mounting device must be properly permitted;
(4) Authorize changing the physical method of image presentation, such as digital or neon display without a permit;
(5) Authorize a physical change to the sign structure without compliance with applicable building codes, safety codes, and neutrally-applicable rules for sign size, height, orientation, setback, separation or illumination.
(§ I, Ord. 248-NS, eff. January 6, 1972, as amended by § 2, Ord. 1621-NS, eff. September 30, 2016)