Abington's LeFevre: Township Defending Stance on No Billboards

From five to three to … none.

Last month, the Abington Board of Commissioners rescinded a December motion that declared portions of a zoning ordinance, which prohibits billboards, invalid—all this was in response to an application by MC Outdoor, LLC, a billboard company, which challenged the validity of the ordinance.

What’s this mean?

“At this point, the township is defending its position not to have any billboards,” Abington Township Manager Michael LeFevre said earlier today.

Last March, MC Outdoor founding partner Thaddeus Bartkowski, speaking to the board of commissioners, said he compiled a “menu” of site choices—of which the township could select three.

Those sites included monopole, double-sided billboards at 1844, 1706, 1713 and 1600 Old York Road, and 917 Huntingdon Pike, as well as lower, monument-style LED signs at Giant Market, Willow Grove Park Mall (near the corner of Moreland and Easton roads) and the Huntingdon Valley Shopping Center on Huntingdon Pike. All of the proposed signs were in areas zoned Planned Business (PB).

For more on the application, click here.

“[MC Outdoor] applied for five billboards, and then the consensus was that three might work—we couldn’t come up with a solution,” LeFevre said earlier today.

Additionally, MC Outdoor filed an appeal in common pleas court to have the township’s April 14 decision overturned, according to LeFevre.

And today, MC Outdoor also asked for a continuance of the May 25 Abington Zoning Hearing Board meeting, LeFevre said.

Abington Solicitor Rex Herder has yet to respond, LeFevre said.

“I’m sure the board, the individual commissioners have received various levels of feedback on this issue,” LeFevre said.

Many of the commissioners and audience members were heard groaning after the March presentation, in which MC Outdoor displayed photos of sites with “after” shots containing renderings of LED billboards, and commissioner Michael O’Connor went so far to call the MC Outdoor application “an attack on our community.”

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