DelCo Billboard Battles Rage On

The two-year-old fight against billboard proliferation in Delaware County continues this week, with no signs of abating.

Some Haverford Township residents opposed to five proposed billboards on West Lancaster Avenue and along West Chester Pike are urging residents to show solidarity Thursday evening with their neighbors in Springfield Township, who are battling the same billboard company over at least seven large signs proposed for Baltimore Pike.

"Springfield and Haverford have exactly the same case going, with the same lawyers," said Sandi Donato, a Havertown resident who has been involved in organized protests against the billboard company, Bartkowski Investment Group Inc., and their affiliates around the Philadelphia suburbs. "Residents from several townships are united against this. Nobody wants these."

However, Thaddeus Bartkowski, owner of the investment group, countered Donato's claim and said that with nearly 50,000 people in Haverford Township and only 20 people who showed up at Tuesday night's Haverford hearing, he said the majority of residents do not care about the billboard issue.

Marc Kaplin, an attorney for Bartkowski, said that another lawyer, Carl Primavera, would be representing his client at Thursday's Springfield meeting. But he expects the Springfield Township solicitor Jim Byrne to continue, and possibly finish, his cross-examination of Bartkowski's land planner Larry Waetzmann.

At Tuesday's Haverford hearing, Kaplin said he "got about 75 percent through" with his own questioning of Waetzmann, and that Byrne completed his cross-examination of Bartkowski's traffic expert, Craig Richardson.

Hearings will continue in January.

Bartkowski is facing legal actions in Lower Merion Township as well, along with other suburban communities where he has interests in several billboard concerns. Kaplin said he "did not know if I could answer" the question of just how many companies his client is involved in.

"It's a very, very simple conversation," Kaplin said Thursday. "Springfield, Haverford and a number of other municipalities have a total and complete prohibition of billboards. That violates Pennsylvania law. It's as simple as that."

Donato said the illuminated, double-sided signs are "the size of a tractor trailer," at 14 by 48 feet in area, raised up more than 50 feet in the air.

"The average property length in my neighborhood is 50 feet. If you put one of these on my front lawn, it would cover everything except my roof peak," she said. "We don't have anything that big in Havertown."

Assisting the citizens behind No Billboards coalition (representing Haverford, Marple, Newtown, Springfield and Morton) and other efforts with advice (though no funding) are local and national anti-blight groups such as Society Created To Reduce Urban Blight (SCRUB) in Philadelphia, Scenic America and the Pennsylvania Resources Council, an environmental group that states "visual blight prevention" as part of its mission.

"There have been countless protests and countless comments at hearings over the past two years," Donato said. "This is going to be a precedent-setting case in Pennsylvania."

Kaplin however, seemed to say that the dye is already cast.

"The latest Supreme Court decision is from Exeter Township in Berks County," Kaplin said, referring to a January 2010 decision. "The court said, 'You may be able to regulate it, but you can't prohibit it.' These townships elected not to regulate, so we've challenged their ordinances. And if we win, we're entitled to site-specific relief. Sooner or later we will be entitled to put our signs in the locations that we've chosen, unless someone proves that there is something inherently wrong with those locations."

Asked if there was any case law related to billboards and claims of blight, Kaplin said no.

"They tried to do it here and they can't," he said. Besides, "I don't know that they're claiming blight. Their legal arguments are that these are special places worthy of special protection.

"What's so special about being on the 600 block of Lancaster Avenue, across the street from an empty Jaguar facility? An empty Food Source with an empty parking lot? A Rite Aid, with a Getty gas station? A pizza place with a big neon sign? What's so special? That's not Ardmore, or Rosemont, or Bryn Mawr."

The Springfield meeting is at 7:30 p.m. Thursday evening, at the Springfield Township Building, 50 Powell Rd.