City, Lamar await court ruling on Mount Washington sign
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania heard oral arguments Thursday over a sign that has overlooked the city of Pittsburgh for nearly a century.
In 2016, the “city woke up” to find a “blatantly illegal” vinyl banner advertising the cell phone carrier Sprint that a billboard company had fixed “like a fitted sheet” over a longstanding electronic sign, violating city zoning ordinances, argued Pittsburgh’s assistant solicitor Lawrence Baumiller to a panel of three judges.
After Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph James reversed a decision by the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment that had ordered Lamar Advertising to remove the sign, the city appealed because the sign does not conform to the area’s current zoning.
The zoning board contended that by affixing a 7,200-square-foot vinyl static advertising sign atop of a “nonconforming” 4,500-squarefoot electronic sign, Lamar violated a section of the city zoning code, which states that nonconforming signs “may not be enlarged, added to or replaced by another nonconforming sign or by a nonconforming use or structure” and that Lamar abandoned its legal obligation to the city.
Not so, Lamar attorney Jonathan Kamin argued Thursday morning, saying that the company worked with the city and followed proper permitting application procedures, even giving the city a $72,000 check for a permit that has gone uncashed.
By not responding to Lamar’s permit application, Mr. Kamin told the judges that the city had “eviscerated 90 years of property rights.”
Whether the city has an issue with the content of the sign, Mr. Kamin said after the arguments that, “we have free speech rights, and they’re all legally permitted and have been for 90 years. It is important for us and important for every property owner in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
Mr. Kamin said Lamar spent
nearly $1 million throughout the process of meeting with Mount Washington and North Side community groups, hiring lighting engineers and taking core samples around the sign’s infrastructure.
Mr. Kamin said he’s hopeful “for a swift decision so that we can move forward.”
The city declined to comment.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto has publicly criticized the billboard as an eyesore.
When the Commonwealth Court judges will rule is unknown.