Lamar Corp. v. City of Twin Falls

The City of Twin Falls (defendant) adopted a Comprehensive Plan designating one street as a scenic entry corridor and requiring special-use permits for billboards there, with the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) required to apply specific traffic-safety and visual-impact criteria under the Twin Falls Zoning Code (TFZC) before issuing a permit. When Idaho Outdoor (plaintiff) applied for a permit for a large 12-by-24-foot billboard on that corridor, P&Z staff found it larger than existing signs and inconsistent with the area's character, leading first P&Z and then, on appeal, the City Council to deny the permit for failing the TFZC's visual-impact and aesthetic criteria. Idaho Outdoor then appealed to the district court, which reversed, finding the TFZC's aesthetic criteria too vague and lacking objective standards to survive commercial-speech scrutiny, and ordered the City to issue the permit; the City appealed.