By Clea Benson

A City Council committee today will consider a bill that would limit the ability of nonresidents to intervene in neighborhood zoning disputes.

The bill, sponsored by Council members Frank DiCicco and Joan Krajewski, is conceived as a way of keeping activist groups from blocking efforts by billboard companies that want to put up commercial signs in areas not zoned for them.

It would not be limited to billboard disputes but would cover any zoning conflict.

The bill is aimed at groups such as the Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight (SCRUB), a citywide anti-billboard organization.

While billboard companies sometimes have been able to get permission to put up their signs from local neighborhood groups and from the zoning board, they have been stymied when SCRUB and other groups appealed to Commonwealth Court.

The law now says "any taxpayer" may go to court to appeal a decision by the zoning board. The bill would remove that language, effectively requiring that someone be an "aggrieved party" before they can challenge a zoning decision in court. That would make it harder for groups that are not neighborhood-based to bring an appeal.

"It's really a good-government issue in my mind," said Mary Tracy, founder of SCRUB. "I think it's unconscionable for elected officials to be taking away taxpayers' rights."

In recent months, SCRUB has successfully gone to court to stop the erection of billboards on city land near Philadelphia International Airport and on a building across from Independence Hall.

Tracy said groups like hers should have standing in such cases because issues such as billboards transcend neighborhood boundaries. "I think we have to stop thinking of this city as one little neighborhood, because what happens in one little neighborhood affects us all," she said.

But Krajewski said the current system allowed outsiders to come in and dictate what they thought was best for the people who lived in a neighborhood.

"I can't see the good of another area coming in and telling people what's good for their community," Krajewski said.

Krajewski said she would support residents' groups that crusaded against billboards in their neighborhoods.

"I've had different community groups in my area who were opposed to a billboard, and of course we would go against it," she said.

The hearing on the bill is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. today in City Council chambers, Room 400, City Hall.