Some Columbia city officials want to get rid of all the billboards in town, at least the few they can regulate.

Columbia City Council will consider Wednesday a ban on new billboards and a companion measure that would require existing billboards to be removed within seven years.

Because most billboards in the city sit on interstates and major roads and are protected by state and federal law, the city can’t require they be removed. But billboards on roads such as Whaley and Pickens streets downtown fall within city zoning laws. They number fewer than 15.

The ordinance, presented by City Councilwoman Anne Sinclair and chief zoning official Marc Mylott, is intended to stave off the anticipated effect of proposed billboard legislation at the State House.

“If all this wasn’t going on in the General Assembly, I don’t know we’d be looking at billboards at all,” Sinclair said.

The proposed state legislation would, in part, require cities and counties to compensate companies for actual costs and lost revenues if they are forced to move billboards because of local zoning ordinances. It also would require they pay landowners the cost of lost rent from the billboard.

The S.C. Municipal Association has estimated it could cost cities up to $400,000 per billboard, a figure billboard companies dispute.

Mylott said passing the ordinance now would give City Council several years to consider whether it wants to require the removal of billboards. If it waits, the proposed state legislation could prevent the city from passing a mandatory removal ordinance in the future, he said.

“It effectively buys them time to think about it,” he said.

Mayor Bob Coble said he supports limiting new billboards but is worried about making taxpayers liable for the cost of bringing down existing ones.

“The cost could be staggering,” he said.

The city already has a cap-and-replace ordinance, which requires that for any new billboard that goes up, one must come down.

Scott Shockley, general manager of Lamar Advertising of Columbia, said the billboard industry was comfortable with cap-and-replace, but he will oppose the new proposal.

“The concept that you could take someone’s property without paying for it — I hope the city is not frankly interested in sending that signal that’s an OK thing to do,” Shockley said. “Any business owner should be concerned about that.”

City Council will consider the ordinance Wednesday without a recommendation from the Planning Commission, which split 4-4 on the issue earlier this month.

Reach Drake at (803) 771-8692 or jdrake@thestate.com.