The Johannesburg Property Company is to release a new approach to managing advertising signage on council-owned land.

A NEW approach has been adopted regarding advertising billboards on council-owned property. The regulations, to be released next month by the  City of Joburg Property Company (JPC), will govern outdoor advertising and signage on municipal property.

They have been adopted to intensify and ensure compliance with lease laws, and to improve the administration of erecting billboards on Joburg property.

In addition, the new approach will make identifying legal and illegal billboards efficient, according to Nisha Moodley, the JPC's marketing manager.

It comes after a JPC audit that found that there were about 900 billboards on council-owned land, of which 20 percent were considered illicit and had been erected without proper authorisation from the City council.

Billboards will have to have City branding

"The intention of the entire process and the aim of the new approach is to eradicate illegal billboard structures from council-owned land," Moodley says. It will be effective from July.

As part of the changes, the JPC will ensure that the outdoor advertising structures on council property are clearly branded. The company hopes that the new approach will allow easy identification and distinction between legal and illegal signage.

"It will enable the JPC to identify and blacklist non-compliant signs and operators."

Moodley explains that there will be City branding on the stems of the billboards, showing the City logo, details of the structure's owner, the City's approval number and the lease's expiry date.

The new approach will also help to improve the overall administration of billboard leasing, she says, and efficiently control the removal of illegal signs. "[It] will also help to disassociate the council, as landowners, [from] illegally erected billboards on its land.

"The JPC estimates that the re-branding of the 900 outdoor billboards on City of Johannesburg land will take 12 months to complete."

Owners of billboards on new sites will be advised about the required branding before the sign is erected, "while owners of existing structures will be given an implementation date by when they will be required to brand their structures in accordance with the new approach".

There has to be a lease agreement in place for a billboard on council land to be legal.

"For regulatory compliance, each billboard structure would have to receive a land-use approval in terms of the outdoor advertising signs and hoardings by-laws."

In addition, billboard owners will have to get the landowner's approval - whether the land is council or privately owned - before they can erect a sign. Without approval "the [billboard] will be declared illegal".

Solicitors, working for the JPC, will monitor those who fail to follow the stipulated regulations; legal action will be taken and the billboards will be removed.