## Facts

- The City of Twin Falls adopted a comprehensive plan designating U.S. Highway 93 as an “entry corridor” and identifying traffic safety and visual quality as planning goals.
- Under the Twin Falls Zoning Code, off-premise billboards in the relevant zone were allowed only by special-use permit, which required findings addressing traffic safety and visual impact/aesthetic compatibility with the area.
- In 1995, Lamar’s predecessor applied for a special-use permit to erect a 12-by-24-foot off-premise billboard on the entry corridor.
- Planning staff concluded the proposed billboard would be larger than existing signage in the area and not harmonious with the corridor’s planned character.
- The Planning and Zoning Commission denied the permit based on noncompliance with the code’s visual-impact and compatibility criteria.
- The City Council affirmed the denial on administrative appeal.
- Lamar sought judicial review; the district court reversed, held the aesthetic criteria insufficiently objective and definite under commercial speech standards, and ordered the City to issue the permit.
- The City appealed to the Idaho Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the zoning code’s aesthetic and visual-impact criteria for special-use permits imposed an unconstitutional restraint on commercial speech because they were allegedly vague or gave unbounded discretion.
2. Whether the City Council’s denial of the special-use permit was supported by substantial and competent evidence and was consistent with applicable law.
3. Whether the district court erred in refusing to strike certain materials from the record on appeal.

## Decision

- The Idaho Supreme Court reversed the district court’s judgment.
- The Court held the zoning code’s aesthetic/visual-impact standards were sufficiently definite when read in context with the zoning scheme and comprehensive plan, and did not violate protections for commercial speech.
- The Court held the City Council’s denial was supported by substantial and competent evidence and was not arbitrary or capricious.
- The Court rejected the City’s challenge to the district court’s decision not to delete materials from the record.
- The case was remanded for proceedings consistent with reinstating the City’s denial of the permit.

## Legal Principles

- Municipal regulation of off-premise billboard structures through a special-use permitting scheme may be constitutionally permissible when it is content-neutral and directed to location, size, and physical impacts rather than message.
- Aesthetic objectives and traffic safety are legitimate governmental interests that can justify restrictions on billboard placement and size.
- Zoning terms such as “compatible” and “harmonious” are not unconstitutional per se; in land-use regulation they may provide adequate guidance when constrained by an adopted comprehensive plan and related code criteria.
- On judicial review of local land-use decisions, courts uphold administrative findings when supported by substantial and competent evidence and when the decision is consistent with governing standards.

## Conclusion

The Idaho Supreme Court upheld Twin Falls’s denial of a special-use permit for a billboard on an entry corridor, ruling that the ordinance’s aesthetic compatibility standards were constitutionally sufficient in context and that the denial rested on substantial evidence regarding the billboard’s size and visual impact.


Lamar Corp. v. City of Twin Falls, 981 P.2d 1146 (Idaho 1999)