City of Joburg Property Company (JPC), managers of the City of Johannesburg’s (CoJ) property portfolio, today released details of its new outdoor adverting policy for signage structures on municipal property.

During 2004 JPC conducted an audit to determine the number and status of billboards erected on Council-owned land. The study showed that of approximately 900 billboards located on CoJ owned land more than 20% were considered to be illegal due to the lack of a proper lease, CoJ approval or both. The lack of a system for easy identification of illegal sites was attributed to old CoJ contracts and the lack of proper documentation or full disclosure.

From July 2007 JPC will introduce an approach whereby outdoor advertising structures on municipal property will be clearly branded. It is hoped that this approach will allow for the easy identification and differentiation between legal and illegal signage. In addition, it will enable JPC to identify and blacklist non-compliant signs and operators; improve the overall administration of billboard contracts; and to efficiently and effectively manage the removal of unwanted or illegal signs on municipal land. The new approach will also help to disassociate the Council, as landowners, with illegally erected billboards on private land.

The city branding, which is to be placed on the most visible part of the stem of the billboard structure, will comprise of the CoJ logo together with the details of the structure’s owner, the CoJ approval number and the lease’s expiry date.

JPC estimates that the rebranding of the approximately 900 outdoor billboards on CoJ land will take twelve months to complete.

The process will be implemented using one of two approaches. Owners of billboards on new sites will be advised of the required branding prior to the structure’s construction 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.

“JPC’s outdoor advertising policy is the first of its kind to formalise and implement an approach to ensure compliance with city bylaws,” said Nisha Moodley, JPC’s Marketing Manager.

“Based on the success of JPC’s pilot project and the process we have put in place, private land owners interested in formulating a similar policy for the regulated use of billboard advertising on their properties are welcome to approach us for assistance,” she added.

JPC will soon advertise a tender for the outsourcing of the advertising billboard portfolio, a section of which will include the creation of a team of inspectors to administer and ensure compliance.

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JPC are managers of the City of Johannesburg property portfolio. The company was established in 2000 as part of a programme to streamline operations to achieve better financial stability and service delivery for the CoJ and its municipal-owned entities (MOEs).