The city of Pittsburgh plans to take “immediate steps” to force Lamar Advertising to tear down a Sprint banner affixed to the former Bayer Co. sign atop Mount Washington after the city’s zoning board found that the advertisement violated the law.
Kevin Acklin, chief of staff to Mayor Bill Peduto, said Wednesday that the city is prepared to go to court to get the advertising banner removed if Lamar refuses to take it down.
“They’ve taken it to a place where they have not invested any money into it. The have allowed the infrastructure of the sign to fall apart. They created an eyesore and then they went even worse in partnering with Sprint [to] put this illegal piece of vinyl on our hillsides,” Mr. Peduto said.
Yet despite the Feb. 16 zoning board of adjustment decision denying its protest appeal over the sign, Lamar didn’t sound Wednesday as if it were ready to surrender.
In a statement issued by its attorney Jonathan Kamin, the company said it has been working with the city for more than three years to try to reach a resolution on the historic sign and remains willing to do so.
“However, until an agreement is reached, Lamar must protect its property and constitutional rights,” Mr. Kamin said.
As for whether the sign would come down, “We are exploring our options,” he said, declining to elaborate.
The zoning board, appointed by the mayor, denied Lamar’s protest appeal last week, after the city’s law department ordered the gold banner with black lettering proclaiming, “Pittsburgh WINS with Black & Yellow” removed last June.
It found that the installation of the 7,200-square-foot vinyl static advertising sign as a replacement for a nonconforming 4,500-square-foot electronic sign 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.”
The Sprint banner, affixed to one of the city’s most prominent and historic advertising spaces on the face of Mount Washington, created a stir when it was first erected.
The law department sent cease-and-desist letters ordering the removal of the sign. The Department of Permits, Licenses and Inspections also issued a notice of violation stating the sign was put up without a permit.
At the time, Mr. Kamin said the use was permitted and in compliance with the applicable codes, an argument that the zoning board rejected.
According to the board’s decision, the sign structure has been in place since at least 1933 and has been exclusively used for electronic messaging since then. Bayer ended its use of the sign in 2014.
“The board unequivocally rejects Lamar’s unsupported and unsupportable contentions that the installation of the 7,200-square-foot vinyl sign on the sign structure was no different than changing the advertising copy on any of its other 900 billboards in the city and that Lamar had ‘explicit’ rights to install the vinyl sign,” its decision stated.
Mr. Acklin noted the zoning board also ruled that Lamar, in what it called an “unpermitted action of installing the vinyl sign,” had voluntarily abandoned the legal nonconforming right it had to use the Bayer infrastructure as an electronic advertising sign.
“So now they have a worthless billboard on the side of Mount Washington,” Mr. Acklin said.
Mr. Kamin maintained that Lamar has multiple valid occupancy certificates for the former Bayer sign, and that a prior zoning board decision authorized its continued use for advertising purposes.
Mr. Peduto claimed Lamar put up the Sprint banner when the city refused to allow it to install “the largest LED screen in America at a place that has been an iconic part of Pittsburgh history for nearly 100 years.”
“It would sort of be like trying to take down the Hollywood sign and putting up a giant LED sign up there in its place. And it’s been incredibly disrespectful to the city of Pittsburgh and to the history of the city to do what they have done,” he said.
Mr. Kamin said that wasn’t true.
“We worked for three years with various neighborhood groups, engineers, and consultants to design a LED sign whose look completely replicated the look of the existing neon sign on the hill,” he said.
Mark Belko: mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.
First Published: February 22, 2017, 5:29 p.m.
