Washington Street in the 1960s

Opposition to electronic billboards was on full display at a City Council hearing last week. Community members and elected officials opposed measures that would enable new billboards, and many advocated a total moratorium or abolition.

A 2020 proposal to amend the zoning code would have permitted electronic billboards through a simple variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals. A second proposal would have expanded allowed hours of operations from the current 7 am to 2 pm to be 6 am to midnight.

Both proposals passed the Boston Planning and Development Agency in March, 2020, but have not yet proceeded to the Zoning Commission due to community pushback.

Electronic billboards are currently forbidden in most parts of the city; but the new and converted billboards have successfully passed, especially along highways.

Three special districts in downtown permit electronic signs with fewer constraints around Lansdowne Street, the Theater District, and the South Boston Waterfront, according to Mark McGonagle, community affairs liaison for the Boston Planning and Development Agency.

A longform permit application is required for both new and alterations to existing, billboards, said Chris English, Chief of Staff at Inspectional Services.

According to Ford Cavallari, chairman of the Alliance of Downtown Civic Organizations, who testified last week, the number of applications has increased during Covid restrictions.

He said this increase was part of a deliberate strategy to skirt opposition during remote meetings and that enforcement of the ostensible ban on new and converted billboards has weakened in recent years. Cavallari advocated strictly limiting all new electronic billboards to their designated districts and requiring that any other proposals first designate a new district. The Zoning Board of Appeals should be told not to grant any more variances for electronic billboards.

That view was widely supported by members of neighborhood associations who testified at the City Council.

Beacon Hill Civic Association board member Rachel Thurlow noted that the state constitution permitted municipalities to regulate and ban billboards for more than one hundred years and that the zoning code was not intended to monetize public space.

“Electronic billboards do not belong in a densely populated neighborhood like Chinatown,” said Linda See of the Chinatown Residents Association. She said poor communities of color often bear the brunt of electronic light pollution.

See added, “These well-funded billboard operators wage a war of attrition against the Chinatown community,” by delaying hearings repeatedly until a favorable or nonexistent audience can be found.

“We are in a world where we spend all of our time looking at screens,” said Kenzie Bok, City Councilor for Fenway, Kenmore, Back Bay and Beacon Hill.

Electronic billboards are distracting for drivers and corrosive to the city’s historic fabric, Bok said.

“They are, from every perspective in the areas where they’re being proposed, absolute abominations,” added Martyn Roetter, member of the board of directors of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay.

Roetter compared the harm from light pollution to air or water contamination and said the traditional zoning process was inadequate to manage those harms.

“Light doesn’t stop at three hundred feet,” said John Bookston, board member of the Fenway Civic Association. “Just ban it.”

“As a resident of the city, I have a reasonable expectation that there will not be a billboard put in front of my home,” said Ryan Powers, a longtime downtown resident.