Golden Isles Outdoor, LLCv.The Lamar Company, LLC
Golden Isles Outdoor, LLC challenged a permit allowing Lamar Company to convert an existing Savannah billboard into a digital billboard. The City of Savannah’s Zoning Board of Appeals had invalidated the permit because the billboard site on Mall Boulevard was designated a collector street, while the digital-billboard ordinance allowed new digital billboards only along four-lane or wider arterial roadways. The superior court reversed the ZBA on cross-motions for summary judgment, construing the ordinance’s reference to another sign-regulation provision as including both collector and arterial roads. The Court of Appeals of Georgia granted Golden Isles’s discretionary appeal and reversed. Reading the ordinance as a whole, the court held that “arterial” and “collector” were separate classifications consistently distinguished throughout Savannah’s sign regulations and the incorporated street-classification map. The cross-reference required arterial-roadway billboards to comply with the separate-use-sign provisions; it did not redefine an arterial roadway to include collector streets. That interpretation preserved the ordinance’s language, avoided surplusage, and best served the legislative intent. The court declined to reach Lamar’s due-process challenge because the superior court had not distinctly ruled on the constitutional issue, over which the Supreme Court of Georgia has exclusive appellate jurisdiction. The judgment was reversed; Judge McFadden concurred, and Judge Ray concurred in judgment only.
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