The long-simmering billboard war in Marion County just went from tense to thermonuclear at the Statehouse.

What started as a routine hearing on Senate Bill 167 — a “technical” relocation bill pushed by Sen. Aaron Freeman and the Reagan Outdoor crowd — quickly turned into a legislative stare-down with the City of Indianapolis and the billboard industry on the receiving end.

SB 167 would let billboard companies relocate existing structures anywhere in Marion County — including inside the I-465 loop — so long as they don’t add new faces and comply with INDOT spacing and lighting rules. Industry lobbyists pitch this as a modest, common-sense tweak needed to keep up with redevelopment and aging signs.

Indianapolis sees it very differently.

City officials, neighborhood groups, and civic councils argued that the bill is nothing less than a Statehouse takeover of local zoning authority. They reminded lawmakers that Indianapolis has regulated billboards since the 1950s, banned new ones inside I-465 since 1971, and — at the General Assembly’s own direction — spent two years negotiating with the industry before passing a compromise ordinance in January 2025.

That deal, the city says, gave the billboard companies six of their ten asks: taller signs, looser spacing along highways, relaxed setbacks, and limited relocation rights — all while preserving local control over time, place, and manner. It passed unanimously at the City-County Council after an unusually public, transparent process.

The billboard companies weren’t impressed. They told lawmakers the city’s August 2024 proposal was a “take-it-or-leave-it” ultimatum, that real negotiations effectively stopped, and that the final changes barely moved the needle on where they can actually relocate signs. In their telling, Indianapolis smiled politely — and then stonewalled.

After another predictable round of “home rule versus economics,” the House committee chair lost patience.

He rolled out what he called “Amendment 1” — a deliberately brutal, mutually offensive backstop designed to force both sides to cut a deal or else.

Under his proposal:

  • Every billboard inside I-465 would have to come down by January 1, 2027.

  • The only billboards allowed anywhere would be in historic districts — and they’d have to be digital.

Yes, really.

The chair openly admitted everyone would “hate this” and called it “the worst of all scenarios.” Then he held the bill for a week, effectively telling Indy and the industry: you’ve got a short window to grow up, compromise, and solve this — or the legislature will solve it for you.

“I don’t know that this is a General Assembly problem,” he said, “but I see that there is a problem… We’re going to fix it, or this is what you’re going to get.”