About That Billboard. Is Faring Creating Its Own West Hollywood Billboard Policy?

So… about that billboard. Faring Capital’s Robertson Row proposal has generated significant community response since WEHOonline published its coverage Thursday — and much of it centers on one element: the 120-foot two-sided digital billboard proposed for Santa Monica Boulevard. Turns out the sign stands out for more reasons than its sleek design and unusual height.

Digital Billboards on Santa Monica Blvd.

West Hollywood currently only allows new digital billboards in one place: the Sunset Strip, governed by the Sunset Specific Plan adopted back in 1996. Outside that area, new off-site digital signs are not permitted anywhere, including on Santa Monica Boulevard — at least not under existing City code.

Former Mayor Steve Martin, who served on the City Council when the original policy was adopted, said the prohibition was deliberate. “The ban on new signage off the Sunset Strip goes back to the original Sunset Specific Plan, adopted in approximately 1996,” Martin told WEHOonline. “We were going to allow signage on the Strip and try to remove billboards from Santa Monica Boulevard to avoid visual blight. To my knowledge there has never been a new community conversation about changing this policy.”

The ZTA that isn’t law yet

The City has been working on a Zone Text Amendment (ZTA) that would create a new path for digital billboards outside the Sunset Strip. City Council directed staff in October 2024 to draft a ZTA allowing off-site signage on Santa Monica Boulevard, La Brea Avenue, and Fairfax Avenue in conjunction with affordable housing development agreements. In March 2026, Council added a second track: properties with live music venues that have operated continuously on Santa Monica Boulevard for at least 50 years.

The Planning Commission debated the ZTA back on May 7. After more than two hours they voted 6-0 not to recommend the ZTA as written, directing staff to “broaden and refine” it before returning to City Council.

Commissioner Hoopingarner, one of the toughest critics at the hearing, said that expanding digital billboards beyond the Sunset Strip would undercut what makes the existing program valuable. “By creating this generic category on all our other streets, it takes away any uniqueness that we have as a city,” she said. Other commissioners raised concern that market saturation could dilute the revenue and artistic value of the existing Sunset Boulevard program, which currently generates approximately $9 million annually for the City from 21 billboards.

Robertson Row wouldn’t qualify under the ZTA anyway. The project has no housing. The Factory building — the historic 1929 structure that once housed Studio One — was dismantled in 2020. It hasn’t operated as an entertainment venue since. The 50-year continuous operation requirement isn’t met.

The specific plan path

Since there’s no existing policy that would permit the billboard, Faring is running it through the project’s specific plan amendment — a tool that lets the developer set their own development standards for the site.

During Thursday’s community meeting, project architect Benjamin Anderson called the billboard a “gateway to the newly designated Rainbow District.” Stevens and the team leaned on gateway language a few times to describe the project.

One resident pushed back on that framing, telling WEHOonline, “We have established, legitimate gateways at our city limits — La Brea to the east and Doheny to the west. If every major intersection is declared a gateway, the city’s long-standing billboard prohibition becomes meaningless.”

Some say the project remains fiscally unviable unless Faring is able to finance the project with advertising income. Anita Goswami, a longtime West Hollywood resident who has followed the project closely, agreed. “Since the project has been right-sized to a much smaller scale, the sources of income are reduced,” she said. “I would guess that the billboard would be the primary revenue source.”

The connection being made between the ZTA and Robertson Row isn’t new. It was raised publicly before Thursday’s community meeting. In written comments submitted to the Planning Commission ahead of the May 7 ZTA hearing, West Hollywood resident David Eckert wrote “I have heard the Robertson Lane redesign asked for a digital billboard to get their new proposal built. If so this item is hiding the truth about a policy to align with a developer seeking a change in billboard policies to fit with what they want.”

What the City said

We asked the City if the billboard was allowed under current code. Community Development Director Nick Maricich responded Friday. The short answer: it isn’t. “The sign is not currently permitted under existing regulations as proposed,” Maricich said. He confirmed the site carries no gateway node designation, that there is no Santa Monica Boulevard billboard policy comparable to Sunset’s, and that the billboard is being evaluated as part of the overall project — not as a standalone approval.

WEHOonline also submitted questions to Faring Capital asking whether the company has construction financing secured for Robertson Row. No response was received before publication.

The 64,000 dollar — ok, prolly closer to 64 million dollar — question is whether the City Council accepts Faring’s specific plan amendment as justification. There’s no existing policy that says yes — or no. Faring isn’t asking City Council to create a new billboard policy for Santa Monica Boulevard, it’s asking them to create one just for Robertson Row.

With the ZTA still unresolved and potential for expanding digital billboards up and down Santa Monica Boulevard, La Cienega, and La Brea, residents are right to ask what approving this one billboard means for every block, and whether, as former Mayor Martin warned in 1996, it leads to the visual blight the original policy was designed to prevent.