Outdoor advertising displays: customary maintenance: permits: new alignments.

Senator Strickland's outdoor advertising legislation redefines maintenance standards and streamlines permit processing for billboards along California's highways. The measure establishes "customary maintenance" as activities that preserve existing advertising display dimensions, including structural upgrades and post replacements, while maintaining or reducing the total number of support posts.

The legislation addresses permit processing for advertising displays along newly aligned highway segments. The Department of Transportation must process permit applications for new displays when the relevant highway section is open to vehicular traffic within 1,000 feet of the proposed location, regardless of whether the overall highway project has received final completion status. This provision modifies current department practice, which delays application processing until formal project completion.

The measure adds these provisions to California's existing Outdoor Advertising Act framework, which regulates billboard placement near interstate and federal-aid highways. Under the act, advertising displays require permits and must adhere to specified distance requirements from designated highways. The new provisions maintain these core requirements while providing procedural clarity for maintenance activities and permit processing along new alignments.