It’s taken Buildings Department officials eight years, but they’ve finally figured out that Yankee Stadium is nowhere near Yonkers.
So the giant billboard off the Yankee Stadium exit ramp from the Major Deegan Expressway that’s been in violation of zoning regulations since 2004 — under a bizarre exemption claiming it’s within a half-mile of the city’s boundary line — will have to come down.
So will about 75 advertising signs on properties owned by the MTA, the Port Authority and Amtrak that a federal judge ruled in 2009 fall under the city’s jurisdiction, but which the department for some reason never got around to reviewing.
“We will be enforcing against the signs on those properties,” vowed Buildings spokesman Tony Sclafani.
One of those is the iPad ad draping an MTA building that’s practically within touching distance of motorists headed south on FDR Drive near 125th Street.
Operators of some of the smaller billboard companies say they have an explanation why the illegal signs have been allowed to stay up for so long: selective enforcement. They claim they’re getting hammered by fines that start at $10,000 per violation, while bigger billboard players such as Van Wagner get a free ride.
A few billboard companies sued the city in 2005, delaying implementation of new billboard rules until 2010. Van Wagner wasn’t one of them.
“They’re going after anyone who sued them,” claimed one billboard company owner whose business evaporated when the city won the suits and began cracking down.
“It’s not surprising that major outdoor advertising companies sneer at the efforts of smaller companies such as OTR to get a level playing field on sign regulations,” said Ronald Coleman, a lawyer for OTR, one of the litigants. “The big players basically wrote those rules — and their purpose was to clear out upstart companies.”
Steve Pretsfelder, Van Wagner’s executive vice president and counsel, countered that his company is getting its share of fines and he dismissed complaints from some competitors as sour grapes.
“They adopted a business plan to put up illegal signs,” charged Pretsfelder. “They lost [in court]. Now they’re desperately trying to find ways around it. The city doesn’t discriminate.”
Billboards erected after 1979 within 900 feet of an arterial roadway or 200 feet within a park are generally illegal.
A loophole allowed signs within a half mile of a city border, but the department now says that refers to a city limit, not the Hudson River, so the Stadium billboard — which one insider estimates pulls in $20,000 a month during baseball season — is now illegal.