A billboard company is continuing its fight in court to place a sign at the Tarentum Bridge.
America First Enterprises, doing business as Oliver Outdoor, has filed an appeal in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court challenging the Tarentum Zoning Hearing Board’s decision that the borough’s zoning ordinance does not unlawfully prevent billboards from being located anywhere in the borough.
The company is asking the court to vacate the board’s decision and allow it to place the billboard where it wants at the bridge, where thousands of drivers crossing the Allegheny River would see it every day.
Maureen Sweeny, an attorney representing Oliver Outdoor, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Larry Loperfito, an attorney representing the Zoning Hearing Board, also could not be reached for comment.
The borough has not yet answered the appeal in court.
Oliver Outdoor has been fighting to place a digital billboard at the bridge since January 2019. The sign would be atop a pole below the bridge at 107 E. Fourth Ave.
The case first went to court in November 2019, after the company appealed the Zoning Hearing Board’s decision in May 2019 supporting the borough’s code enforcement officer, who denied the company a permit for the billboard on the basis that the borough’s zoning does not allow it at that location.
Oliver has argued that the borough’s zoning ordinance is unconstitutional because it does not allow billboards to be placed anywhere in the borough. The company has pointed to errors, conflicts and contradictions in the zoning ordinance it says creates a “de facto exclusion,” a condition where an ordinance appears to allow a use but in practice prohibits it.
In December 2019, Common Pleas Judge Joseph James ordered the board to consider the issue. At a hearing in June, which had been delayed in part by the covid-19 pandemic, the board determined that the zoning ordinance does not exclude billboards.
In its latest appeal, the company calls the board’s decision “arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory” and claims that the borough’s zoning is unconstitutional and invalid.
“The Tarentum Borough Zoning Ordinance is invalid, in that it does not permit the use of billboards anywhere in the borough on its face and is therefore de facto exclusionary,” the company says in its appeal.
