Erecting a large electronic billboard in a Middletown right-of-way would run afoul of township zoning law and would create traffic problems, an attorney and transportation engineer testified during a lengthy virtual zoning hearing board meeting Wednesday night.
The hearing was adjourned at 11 p.m. without a decision, and will be continued, likely sometime in the next week or two, board solicitor Dan Grieser said. It's being held to consider an appeal of a zoning permit issued for the billboard, also being referred to as a monument sign, proposed by Premier Media LLC for a spot at the corner of Business Route 1 and South Flowers Mill Road.
McCafferty Hyundai Sales, Inc., owned by the Fred Beans Family of Dealerships, filed the appeal during the summer over the monument sign that would be located in a township right-of-way right next to the dealership.
Signs located in rights-of-way are generally much smaller and are of the "breakaway" type that couldn't cause significant damage in the event of an accident, he added.
"When you start putting fixed objects in rights-of-way, you have a traffic hazard," Horner testified.
Frank Bartle, a Lansdale attorney who specializes in real estate, zoning and land development, testified that monument signs need to be located on an actual lot and are not allowed in rights-of-way.
Beans also repeated points he had made in a recent guest opinion in the Bucks County Courier Times, that the monument sign would be an eyesore and that township officials should have higher standards for structures proposed in Middletown.
The township supervisors approved a 25-year lease for the monument sign in June. It would pay Middletown yearly rents starting at $12,000 and rising to more than $30,000 in the final five years of the agreement.
If eventually put up, the 300-square-foot rectangular-shaped structure would be the second large electronic billboard in Middletown, joining the "M" owned by Catalyst and located on private land at the corner of Business 1 and Oxford Valley Road (read “A Large Electronic Billboard – Touted as “the Middleown Monument” – is Being Erected at Intersection of Route 1 and Oxford Valley Road Near Wawa!”; http://sco.lt/92vyLZ).
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