Mary Tracy searched for a theory, as to why Clear Channel would suddenly dismantle the five billboards that sat on top of a group of stores on the 7000 block of Frankford Avenue.
"Maybe they thought that the signs were blighting the neighborhoods, and just decided to remove them," said Tracy, the Executive Director of the grass-roots organization Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight (SCRUB). "But so many of their other signs are being legalized, and this grouping was losing in court cases."
The removal of the billboards is a victory not only for SCRUB, but also the Tacony Civic Association, who has been fighting in court since 2002 for their removal. The permits for the billboards expired in 1950.
"Those signs have been an eye sore for a very long time," Tracy said. "They were illegal, and it took awhile for them to come down."
But the removal of the signs is just one victory, compared to the many signs that are still up illegally, without much interference from the city. If anything, the city is being more cooperative with the sign companies than with the residents who are affected. A Billboard Consent Agreement was enacted last year that allows the three major billboard Clear Channel, - companies Keystone Outdoor and CBS Outdoor - to more easily obtain zoning variances to retain the signs.
But that pales in comparison to the number of illegal billboards still standing in the city of Philadelphia. Variances have been denied for many of them in court, but they still remain.
"Keystone Outdoor has one at New State Road. they want a variance, we fought it and they lost in common pleas and commonwealth court," Tracy said. "Yet, that sign is still standing. There are cases that SCRUB or community members have won, and the city hasn't removed the signs."
The consent agreement doesn't seem to help the city much financially. Initially, the law stated that each company would have to pay $650 per year, for each sign, to be used for L&I to check on the sign's safety, and other legal issues. Now, according to Tracy, that fee has been reduced to $50.
"How much revenue is being lost? That doesn't even pay for gas for an L&I employee," Tracy said.
SCRUB has taken legal action against the agreement, but fighting has become a harder job, thanks to Pennsylvania House Act 193. That act basically eliminated part of Philadelphia's Home Rule Charter, and stripped any person or group from speaking at a zoning hearing, unless that person is "detrimentally harmed" by the zoning variance. This is also known as being a person of "standing" in a particular case. Civic Associations and groups such as SCRUB must now go to court twice - first to prove that they have standing in the case, then to actually testify at the zoning hearing.
"It's made it more difficult for city-wide groups, like historic preservation society or SCRUB," Tracy said. "We're going to be challenged because we're not right next to the problem. We're appealing that to Supreme Court. We said to our state legislators, bring our rights back home."
And Mark Cohen has listened. The Olney Democrat has introduced House Bill 1651, which will repeal Act 193, restore the Home Rule Charter and give all Philadelphians the right to challenge decisions made by the Zoning Board. Cosponsoring the bill are Reps. Mike McGeehan (D-173), John Sabitina (D-174) and Tony Payton (D-179). None of the other State Representatives from Northeast Philadelphia have yet to support the bill.
Tracy pointed out that, while a person might be rejected from testifying because they live too far away from a problem, the lawyers, billboard owners and many of the property owners live nowhere near the neighborhood that they are affecting.
"You can see billboards from anywhere, they are not just in your backyard," Tracy said. "Is this the kind of treatment that people who are doing their patriotic duty should get, because they aren't one block away, but five or six blocks away?"
Although relatively few of the unlicensed billboards are in Northeast Philadelphia, they do span as north as Grant Avenue. The complete map of unlicensed billboards can be viewed at www.urbanblight.org