NATCHEZ — The Natchez Planning Commission is expected to review possible changes to the city’s billboard ordinance at its meeting tonight.

Interim City Planner Riccardo Giani said he plans to present his recommendations to tighten the restrictions on billboards in the city limits.

The text amendment comes at the request of the Natchez Board of Aldermen, who placed a moratorium on all new billboard applications last month and asked Giani to prepare a recommendation based on what similar cities in the state have done to regulate large outdoor signs.

Giani said his presentation today would include doubling the required distance between signs, reducing the maximum allowable size of a billboard, adding language that specifically outlaws double-decker boards, and enforcing site-specific placement regulations.

“It’s a strategy a lot of cities around the country have used,” Giani said.

Preservation Commission member Liz Dantone came before Natchez aldermen Tuesday with ideas for even tighter restrictions on billboards, which she considers not only an eyesore but a dangerous distraction to drivers.

“Major thoroughfares here are visually cluttered and billboards are a part of that,” she said. “They are dinosaurs, decreasingly effective over time.”

The aldermen unanimously moved in their meeting Tuesday to contact the owners of billboards in the city’s scenic corridors and give them 90 days to take their signs down at their own expense.

Dantone asked the board to not only remove the existing non-conforming boards from scenic corridors, but to expand the billboard free zones to include sections of Liberty Road, Seargent S. Prentiss Drive, and John R. Junkin Drive.

The existing boards in those areas would need to be given a similar deadline for removal, she said.

“I want to thank you for taking action today,” she said to the aldermen Tuesday, “And ask you to be brave with going forward in expanding the corridors.”

Giani said his presentation today would not include a corridor expansion suggestion.

“That would also be made by mayor and board of aldermen, if they’d like to expand those scenic byways,” he said. “I think Liz brought up a good point, that could be a possible route into the future.”

Aldermen first moved to forbid billboards in the city’s scenic corridors in 1994, and gave outdoor advertising companies 10 years to collect revenue from the signs before removing them.

Twelve years past that deadline, those boards are still standing.

“The laws get tricky, to not create an ordinance that economically takes from an individual,” Giani said. “I think 90 days is feasible, it’s more than fair. It’s 12 years past due.”

Giani discovered the 1994 ordinance as he was doing the requested research in recent weeks, he said, and began the process of enforcing the ordinance when he learned of it.

Giani said he is currently preparing a complete inventory of non-conforming billboards. He hopes to contact all of the owners within a week, which will begin the 90-day period.

If the planning commission adopts his recommended changes and the aldermen confirm them, Giani said, owners of signs which don’t conform to the changes will likely be given a period of time to collect revenue from the boards before they are required to remove them.

The planning commission also expects to hear an application for a special exception to its zoning laws in the meeting today.

Natchez Brewing Company will ask for a special exception to operate a micro-brewery in the historic business district.

Brewery owner Lisa Miller and head brewer Patrick Miller will ask the commission’s permission to relocate the business to the former coffee manufacturer on Canal Street. Mike Blattner owns the building the former Herrold-Miller Coffee warehouse.

Patrick Miller said the relocation is necessary for the company’s expansion, which no longer fits in its current location on Franklin Street.

“We’ve maxed out our capacity, so we have to expand to keep up with demand,” he said. “We needed to grow the business, so we started looking for buildings that would sustain the operation, and we wanted to be downtown.”

The downtown location allows the business to take part in tourism and makes it more accessible to the community, Patrick Miller said.

“We think it meets all our needs, and it’s still rustic and kind of cool and fits our brand as well,” he said.

The Natchez Planning Commission will meet at 5:15 p.m. today in city council chambers.