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In considering how to regulate signs, it is important to remember that there are several limitations that flow mostly from First Amendment jurisprudence relating (mostly) to free speech. Principles include generally: • No regulation of content. The regulation must apply equally to any sign display regardless of the message being conveyed. The Supreme Court has carved out some distinctions between “commercial” and “non-commercial” messages, but these are not relevant to this discussion. The City avoids this issue primarily by permitting every property to have a 6 sf (square foot) sign – property owners may display any message on that sign, including opinion messages, “House for Sale”, or pretty much any other message. • The City may regulate “Time, Place, and Manner” issues. This is a general First Amendment protection that allows the City to create non-content-based regulations around the way that sign messages are displayed. So, the City can place limits on sign duration, or sign size, or sign location, or sign design (such as architectural elements, etc.). It is permissible to specify materials, and to limit illumination, or require a permit. It is also permissible to distinguish between sign allowances based on zoning district or land use. Thus, the City can allow or prohibit temporary signs in different districts, and/or create different size, location, or duration requirements based on zoning district. • The content-based aspect raises a particular issue with “Real Estate Signs”. Under this principle, it is not permissible to allow a sign, but limit it to say “House for Sale”, or “Apartment for Lease”, etc. If you allow the sign, of whatever size or location, you have very little flexibility in managing the content. Most cities, if they allow additional real estate signage, do so by specifying that an additional sign is allowed while a property is for sale or lease, without specifying that the message has to be related to the real estate transaction. Thus, a building with office space for rent would be allowed a sign, but they could display a message unrelated to the leasing. The City just presumes that this is an unlikely exception. • An exception to the most significant limitation on content-based regulation is that the Court has allowed cities to distinguish between on-premise and off-premise sign regulation. In the strictest sense, if a property owner can display a sign of a certain size and duration, theoretically they should be able to say “Shop at Walgreens” on their sign, even if the sign is located on a neutral property unrelated to Walgreens. That is, the only way to know whether the sign is violating a prohibition on off-site signage is to read the content of the sign. However, the Court has found that this form of regulation raises other legitimate concerns that permit the content-based restriction.