Title
December 15, 2011
To The President and Members of
The Council of the City of Philadelphia:
For the following reasons, I am returning herewith to your Honorable Body as disapproved Bill No. 110563, which was passed by Council at its session on December 1, 2011.
The bill would allow a very large "wall wrap" outdoor advertising sign, between seven thousand and ten thousand square feet in size, to be hung on any building in the area bounded by 6th, Spring Garden, 7th and Willow Streets. The bill also establishes rules regarding where on the building, and the size of the building on which, the sign can be placed. As a practical matter, the bill would be used to hang a sign on a building that houses the Electric Factory music venue and that is commonly known as the Electric Factory building.
I have disapproved this bill for several reasons. In my view, permissions given for stand-alone advertising signs, particularly very large signs, should be taken up on a City-wide, and not a property-by-property, basis. Moreover, those policy issues should be taken up with broader development goals in mind. This bill is very different from the legislation sponsored by Councilman DiCicco regarding the authorization of large-scale signs on Market East, where specific commitments regarding development of the properties where signs will be located are a condition of receipt of the permission to display large signs.
The end product of the four-year process of overhauling our Zoning Code is scheduled to be voted upon in Council today, marking a significant milestone in zoning reform in the City. As part of that broader process, a signs-control working group has, with the support and oversight of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, begun the process of preparing recommendations for rewriting the sign control portions of the Zoning Code. Recommendations from the working group are expected to be delivered in the spring of 2012, and if Council ag...
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