Billboard companies seem to be buying into a proposed city ordinance that would significantly reduce the number of billboards in Los Angeles.

The ordinance, proposed by Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, would restrict new billboards to 78 high-profile corridors in industrial areas near freeways. New billboards would be banned in other parts of the city. In addition, to get a city permit for one new billboard, the applicant must remove 10 pre-existing billboards from other parts of the city.

The measure goes before the council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee on Nov. 21, the first step in a process expected to take at least two months.

“We’re in agreement with the concept, although we have yet to see all the details,” said Ed Dato, vice president in charge of public affairs for Eller Media Co. in Los Angeles. Dato is also president of the Outdoor Advertising Association of California.

“Yes, it may be reducing the overall numbers of billboards, but by allowing more along freeway borders, it allows billboard companies to charge higher rates,” Dato said. “That’s the carrot for us.”

There have been failed attempts at passing an outright ban on new billboards, and Dato and other billboard company executives have grown increasingly concerned with the spread of billboard bans in various areas of Los Angeles, for periods ranging from three months to a year. This year alone, bans have been put into effect in Hollywood, Boyle Heights and the Westlake/Pico Union area.

“Those interim control ordinances have had a great deal of impact, especially in locations where we and other billboard companies have secured leases for new billboards,” Dato said. “The one in Hollywood has hit us particularly hard.”

A citywide ordinance, he said, would give more certainty to the process, allowing billboard companies to seek leases only in areas where they know they will be allowed to erect billboards.

Dato cited similar procedures in Culver City that he said have worked well for the company.

In that city, which has long had severe restrictions on billboards, Eller Media sought permission to add some billboards along the San Diego (405) and Marina (90) freeways. But in order to put those billboards up, Eller had to agree to take down several of its billboards in other parts of the city.

“It turned out to be a win-win situation for both parties,” said Sherry Jordan, a senior planner with Culver City.

A Ridley-Thomas aide, who previously worked with Jordan in implementing this agreement in Culver City, said that the apparent success of that ordinance is what prompted the councilman to try it in L.A.

“What this does is allow us to get billboards out of residential areas and into these specific corridors,” said Dora Gallo, chief deputy to Ridley-Thomas.

“You just know that, despite the overall restrictions, billboard companies are going to be scrambling to put up billboards in those 78 industrial areas near freeways,” she said. “Those are prime spots.”

Such billboard strategies are widely practiced in other cities. For example, in the City of West Hollywood, which is home to the world-famous billboards of the Sunset Strip, no new billboards are allowed anywhere in the city except on the Strip, according to planning manager Lisa Heep.

“This allows us to keep additional billboards out of other areas while still keeping our cutting-edge reputation for outdoor advertising along the Sunset Strip,” Heep said.