THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 25, 1995 TAG: 9502250241
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
Three billboards greet motorists passing through London Bridge along Virginia Beach Boulevard.
Adams Outdoor Advertising, a Minnesota firm, collects money each month from the companies whose products and services they tout on the signs in larger-than-life images and words.
But the city contends the billboards are illegal.
The two parties were in court Friday, the third time in eight years they have argued their cases before a judge. This time Adams was ordered to tear down the largest of the three billboards.
Nobody, though, expects it to be the last they hear of the matter.
Each time before, the court found that the billboards violate a 1987 city ordinance. And each time Adams has found its way back to the Board of Zoning Appeals and has been granted an exception to the law.
The issue remains locked in a legal loop, which the state Supreme Court has twice refused to stop.
The local zoning board has consistently sided with the billboard owner on the grounds that the ordinance interferes with Adams' property rights and ability to make money.
``I don't think it's right to take anyone's property without just compensation,'' said James A. Wood, board chairman. ``It's really not the American way.''
But the city and the court do not agree with that reasoning.
``The Court is of the opinion that the decision of the board was plainly wrong and contrary to the purpose and intent of the City Zoning Ordinance,'' reads an August 1993 court decision.
The issue first arose in 1987 when the state widened Virginia Beach Boulevard. The three billboards were in the path of the new road, so Adams was forced to remove them.
A new city ordinance aimed at ridding the city of unsightly billboards prohibited Adams from relocating the signs.
The company, however, took its case to the Board of Zoning Appeals and got special permission in August 1987 to reconstruct the billboards near their original locations.
``The stakes are very high because they cannot relocate them in Virginia Beach,'' said R.J. Nutter, attorney for Adams, which has about 35 billboards across the city. ``Every sign is like a little business. The loss of one makes a big impact.''
Each billboard is worth about $1 million over a 20-year life span, Nutter said.
But William M. Macali, deputy city attorney, compares the billboard business to cattle ranching. ``You know a coyote is going to haul a few off from time to time,'' he said. ``It's a risk of the business that Adams is aware of.''
The state offered and Adams accepted $29,700 in compensation for the largest of the three signs. The state offered $32,000 for the two smaller ones, but Adams rejected it.
Nutter said Adams accepted payment for one billboard, assuming it was compensation to relocate it. Once Adams realized it could not be rebuilt, it refused payments on the other two.
The city appealed the board's decision to the Circuit Court, which appoints the zoning board members. The court reversed the ruling in March 1990, saying the billboards were illegal. Adams appealed to the state Supreme Court, but it would not hear the case.
So Adams went back to the Board of Zoning Appeals in June 1991 and was granted a variance to keep all three billboards. The city appealed to Circuit Court and the board was reversed again in August 1993. The Supreme Court again refused Adams' request to hear the case.
Then last week, Adams was back before the zoning board, and was granted another variance. To get a second variance, Adams had to prove that circumstances have changed since the court ruling.
What's changed, Nutter said, is that Adams can no longer get financial remedy for two of the billboards. Based on a ruling in another case, Adams is no longer entitled to payment from the state.
But the board made two of the billboards legal once again.
``We are not judges and we are not lawyers and we don't understand the law that well,'' chairman Wood said, ``but common sense tells me to make a motion to approve. . . . I know there's a lot of frustration in that this has gone on a long time.''
And it will go on longer. The city is expected to appeal again.
The legal maneuvering has frustrated proponents of the billboard ban.
``I wonder about the board not taking the court's decision to heart,'' Councilwoman Barbara M. Henley said. ``The taxpayers are having to continually defend the city's position in court.''
Throughout this game of legal pingpong, Adams refused to dismantle the billboards, so the city filed an injunction to have them removed, which was argued in Circuit Court on Friday.
Since the zoning board made two billboards legal again, Friday's injunction applied only to the third. Adams already accepted money for that billboard, and it's still standing. Now it must finally come down within 60 days. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH, Staff
Adams Outdoor Advertising and Virginia Beach have been sparring in
court for eight years over whether three of the company's billboards
on Virginia Beach Boulevard ought to come down.
by CNB