Billboard Plan Shot Down for Now

Civic
Agenda

Clear Channel's application to put up an 85-foot billboard in front of the Blue Hills has been "tabled" and will be "taken under advisement" according to this article in the Dedham Transcript. State Representative Paul McMurtry, Dedham Town Administrator William Keegan, and Westwood Planning Board Chairman Steve Olanoff joined a number of residents and elected officials from Westwood and Dedham to voice their opposition to the plan.

The billboard would potentially net the MBTA about $55,000/year in revenue and would apparently offset some lost revenue from the orange Westwood Station banners that had been draped over the parking garage until recently. All these attempts at advertising run into direct conflict with a 39-year old agreement with the Federal government that limits billboards along Interstate highway systems to...

Signs may not be located within 300 feet of State or other public parks, playgrounds, forests, reservations, and scenic areas as designated as such by the Department of Public Works or by any other State agency having and exercising the authority to so designate.

The new structure was proposed to sit 310 feet from the Neponset River Reservation.

Legally, attempts to regulate billboards locally have failed. The cities of Somerville and Melrose attempted to stop the MBTA from erecting billboards in 2006 and in 2008, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld a Superior Court judgment that the towns did not have the authority to block the billboards through local zoning. This places the regulation within the discretion of the newly consolidated Massachusetts Department of Transportation, creating an interesting internal agency conflict of interest. If the goal of the MBTA is to raise revenue to better serve the public and avoid raising fares...then what exactly is the discretion of that same agency to deny a permit that meets technical requirements?