A rendering of the 90-foot-tall digital sign that had been proposed to overlook Route 295 from the intersection of Pleasant Valley Avenue and Church Street in Mount Laurel. Another had been proposed on Pike Road.
An outdoor advertising company is asking Mount Laurel to waive its prohibition against electronic billboards and to grant permission to erect two double-sided, digital signs at a height of 90 feet to flash messages to drivers on Route 295.
The Interstate Outdoor Advertising LP plan, scheduled to be heard by the Zoning Board of Adjustment on August 2, includes signs 48 feet wide and covering 672 square feet. The review will include public testimony.
One sign would be anchored at Pleasant Valley Avenue and Church Street and another would be on Pike Road about a third of a mile from Hartford Road.
Electronic billboards are not a permitted use anywhere in Mount Laurel and Interstate Outdoor seeks use variances for both billboards, according to a letter from Interstate Outdoor's lawyer, Kelly Carey of the Hackensack law firm of Pashman Stein Walder Hayden.
Variances also are sought to overcome zoning regulations that forbid changeable copy, billboards next to Route 295 and unshielded illuminating devices, according to Interstate's application letter.Â
Township zoning law limits a sign to no more than eight feet tall and six feet wide. The proposed signs would be 14 feet tall and 48 feet wide. The law states a maximum height is eight feet, but 90 feet is proposed.
Besides the variances, the applicant also seeks preliminary and final site plan approval.
An application by Interstate Outdoor to build a billboard on the Pike Road property was denied by the Mount Laurel zoning board in 2009.
Interstate Outdoor does not own the sites, but states in its application that the Pleasant Valley Avenue property is owned by AXE Property 921 PV LLC of Mount Laurel and the Pike Road property is owned by 100 Pike Road LP of Yardley, Pennsylvania.
The outdoor advertising company is based in Cherry Hill and is owned by two trusts, according to application documents: Amended and Restated Revocable Indenture of Trust of Melissa Silver and Drew Katz Revocable Indenture of Trust.
A report by Interstate Outdoor's traffic engineering firm, Simoff Engineering Associates Inc. of Madison, estimates that, with the 65-mile-an-hour speed limit on Route 295, the Pike Road sign will be visible from both the northbound and southbound lanes for 4.2 seconds.Â
"The billboard will have no impact on the safety of the operation of the highway nor the time that motorists require to see and react to the highway signs and perform other driving tasks," traffic engineer Hal Simoff wrote in the report.
A Simoff report on the Pleasant Valley Avenue sign reached the same conclusions for visibility and safety.
