Judge: WeHo’s billboard evaluation process is unconstitutional

A federal judge has ruled that West Hollywood’s Amended Billboard Plan and its application process for new off-site signs on Sunset Boulevard are unconstitutional, citing overly broad and subjective criteria that grant unbridled discretion to city officials.

In the case of KBS Holdco, LLC v. City of West Hollywood, U.S. District Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha found that the city’s Sunset Arts and Advertising Program, which oversees the design and approval process for billboards, violated the First Amendment. The ruling, issued on July 8 and recently posted on Westlaw, scrutinized the standards under which billboard proposals are evaluated, as reported by The Volokh Conspiracy.

The Amended Billboard Plan establishes guidelines intended to promote “design excellence” and ensure that signage is “creative, contextual for Sunset Boulevard, and sensitive to adjacent land uses.” Applicants are required to pass a two-stage process, including a design review conducted by the Design Excellence Screening Committee. Proposals must achieve an average weighted score of at least 225 out of 250 points across 10 evaluative criteria to receive a concept award and proceed to seek development agreements.

However, Judge Aenlle-Rocha concluded that the criteria for scoring were too vague and subjective to meet constitutional standards. The evaluative factors — such as whether a design is “exceptional,” “harmonious with context,” or “contributes to the iconic nature of Sunset Boulevard” — lack objective definitions, according to the court. This ambiguity grants the Screening Committee excessive discretion in granting or denying concept awards, the judge wrote.

“The unbridled nature of the discretion and decision-making authority the City vested in the Screening Committee is demonstrated by the first criterion alone,” Aenlle-Rocha wrote, noting that it includes multiple sub-criteria without specifying how evaluators should assign scores. The judge also highlighted inconsistencies in scoring. One application received scores ranging from 230 points (92%) to 95 points (38%), with a single low score being enough to disqualify the proposal.

The court further criticized the competitive nature of the process, which requires the Screening Committee to evaluate not only whether applications meet the criteria but also how they compare to others vying for a limited number of concept awards. The judge emphasized that the lack of clear, measurable standards made it impossible for applicants to know what constituted a successful submission.

West Hollywood argued that the Amended Billboard Plan provided sufficient standards to guide discretion, referencing precedents where courts upheld similar regulations. However, Judge Aenlle-Rocha disagreed, finding that the plan lacked the specific and objective criteria necessary to limit the discretion of licensing officials as required by Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit case law.