Dozens of advertising billboards may soon be popping up along roadways in four north Fulton County cities as a result of a Georgia Supreme Court decision issued Monday.
The court ruled unanimously against Johns Creek, Milton and Sandy Springs as they sought to regulate billboards that had been applied for before the cities became incorporated.
The ruling also applies to two applications that were submitted in Alpharetta before city residents voted to annex that piece of land, lawyers said.
The decision caps an eight-year legal battle that initially pitted the billboard companies against Fulton County, which the four cities later joined. The dispute has been handled by two Fulton judges and resulted in two state Supreme Court rulings.
The latest decision could change the face of Johns Creek, where companies submitted applications for 31 signs.
“Our legal team is evaluating the Supreme Court’s ruling and I don’t have a plan of action yet,” Mayor Mike Bodker said.
Monday’s ruling did not sit well with Mayor Joe Lockwood of Milton, where 10 applications are pending.
“Milton is more rural in nature, doesn’t have any interstates or major thoroughfares that you would think of as appropriate for billboards,” he said. “Aesthetically, this is not a good situation for us.”
Sandy Springs Mayor Eva Galambos said she does not comment on court rulings.
David Flint, a lawyer for two billboard companies, said Fulton County should have allowed the signs to be erected years ago.
Flint said his clients have submitted 25 applications for new billboards across north Fulton.
Adam Webb, a lawyer for two other companies, said the state Supreme Court “has once again reaffirmed that free speech and property rights issues are taken very seriously in this state.” He estimated his clients have applied for about three dozen permits.
The case dates back to 2003, when the companies asked Fulton County to approve numerous sign permits. When the county denied them, the companies challenged the sign ordinance and convinced a Fulton judge to declare it was unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.
Instead of passing a new sign ordinance, Fulton took the position its ordinance had been declared unconstitutional only in part, not in its entirety. In the ensuing years, the Legislature allowed residents to approve referendums to incorporate Johns Creek, Milton and Sandy Springs.
In the months between the time the legislation was enacted and the cities became incorporated, the billboard companies, having purchased land or obtained leases for sites, sought building permits from Fulton County for their new signs, said Laurel Henderson, an attorney for the cities.
“It was like a feeding frenzy,” she said. All told, more than 75 applications were submitted, although state law will prevent all of them from being approved.
On Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court noted that when it first ruled in 2007 that Fulton’s sign ordinance was unconstitutional, it had struck it down in its entirety. Because the county then had no valid sign ordinance for years, there was no restriction on the construction of signs in Fulton when the companies filed their applications, the ruling said.
As a result, the billboard companies obtained “vested rights” when they filed their applications and the new cities could not enact their own ordinances after the fact to retroactively deny the permits, the court said.
The ruling is unrelated to new state legislation signed last month allowing some billboard owners to clear-cut trees blocking their signs.
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