SOMETIMES IT PAYS to strike in the dead of night.
Gov. Rendell will sign a bill quietly amended last month on behalf of the state’s billboard lobby to limit the rights of community groups in zoning cases, his spokeswoman confirmed yesterday.
Tracy said community groups would go to court to try to have the law overturned.
The controversial provision limits the right of neighbors within 500 feet of a development to appeal Philadelphia zoning decisions. It was inserted into another bill and passed overnight as the legislative session ended last month.
The change would effectively prevent Tracy’s Group, Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight (SCRUB), from fighting billboard companies in court to enforce a highly restrictive 1991 City Council ordinance.
So far, no state legislator has owned up to sponsoring the amendment.
It was inserted in a committee chaired by Sen. Robert Thompson, R-
Chester County, who has not returned calls from the
“I did,” said John Milliron, counsel to the Outdoor Advertisers Association of Pennsylvania.
Milliron declined to say which lawmakers were key in moving the legislation, but he said it only brought Philadelphia into conformity with the rules for Pennsylvania’s 66 other counties.
In Philadelphia, citywide groups could go to court in a zoning case to enforce a city law. Elsewhere, only neighbors directly affected had standing.
Tracy said the new provision makes Philadelphia’s standard even tougher than other communities’.
The zoning amendment was added to a bill raising the limit on municipal fines in Philadelphia from $300 to $2,000. Mayor Street wanted that authority to crack down on illegal dumpers and others, and Rendell said that was too important for him to veto the measure.
Spokeswoman Kate Philips said Rendell was troubled by the last-minute legislative change. “This is unfortunately typical of what the Legislature does,” Philips said. “The governor has said it’s not good policy to try to fit a year’s worth of legislative work into a three-night flurry.”
Community groups opposing the bill may be encouraged by the city’s successful challenge of legislation quickly amended at the end of the 2002 session to affect the Convention Center, the Parking Authority and city union arbitration rules.
The suit relied in part on a provision in the state constitution barring the Legislature from passing any law amended so drastically that its original purpose is altered.
Staff writer Michael Hinkelman contributed to this report.