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Prop. D would allow property owners to bypass two advertising restrictions, one that passed in 1970 and eliminated advertising along the downtown portion of mid-Market and another, passed in 2002, that banned new billboards citywide.

Under the new proposition, signs ranging from digital billboards, like the one seen heading into Oakland from the Bay Bridge, to "dancing inflatable men" would be allowed along Market from Fifth to Seventh streets, according to the Planning Department. No studies have shown how much revenue the measure would create, but a single digital billboard in Los Angeles can generate $68,000 a month.

Critics such as the civic groups Livable City and San Francisco Beautiful argue that proponents are conflating historic marquees with billboards and say the plan will actually promote blight by giving owners new revenue without requiring property improvements. "It's not about business signs or historic marquees at all. The Planning Code already allows those," said Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, whose office is on mid-Market. "No part of revitalization, to me, is advanced by giant billboards."

A memo from Planning Director John Rahaim warns that controls in the measure on the signs' size and brightness are largely meaningless. Multiple signs could be placed next to each other and linked, creating one massive billboard, and the measure also doesn't provide money for the Planning Department to buy the equipment needed to test signs' brightness, Rahaim wrote.

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