Plan to move billboards along I-95 advances in Philly City Council

A Philadelphia City Council committee has approved moving some billboards along Interstate 95.

The bill would eliminate two billboards and relocate four along the I-95 corridor between Allegheny and Cottman avenues.

Stephanie Kindt of the group Scenic Philadelphia says the repositioned billboards will hurt the area along the interstate.

“I’m opposed to having billboard towering over schools homes, parks, playgrounds,” she said. “I’m opposed to billboards over 110 feet high as some of them are when our laws say no higher than 25 feet.”

Alan Kessler, the attorney representing billboard owners, says improvements to the interstate require that the signs be moved.

“It doesn’t create anything new. It doesn’t do anything that is tricky,” he said Tuesday of the plan. “It simply preserves, to some degree, what existed before. In other words, it preserves to some degree the status quo with the exception of the signs that will be lost in this.”

The bill still requires full council approval and the mayor’s signature.