Monday, March 21, 2011

City and state in billboard war

From the Daily News:

The GOP-controlled state Senate wants the state to take over the licensing of billboards in the five boroughs - potentially stripping millions of dollars from the city.

"That's a sizable amount of money, about $15 million, that could be added to the [state] coffers," said state Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn).

Golden said the little-noticed billboard provision - tucked in a budget resolution adopted by the Senate this week - is a way to circumvent the city's overly restrictive zoning codes and allow more revenue-generating signs.

Bloomberg administration officials slammed the proposal as an "unwarranted intrusion" on the city's zoning authority.

"Illegal advertising signs would remain in locations where they do not belong, perpetuating visual pollution and esthetic harms," Bloomberg aide Micah Lasher told senators.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do New Yorkers get it yet? Upstaters HATE THIS CITY. We represent only a source of revenue to keep their petty fiefdoms afloat.

Whatever bright minds their parochial, and dead communities manage to produce make a bee-line out and head for the five boroughs.

With one, or two exceptions (Albany and for now, Rochester) the rest of that area is dying and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Were it not for NYC, the region above Westchester would be one of the poorest in the entire country.

Our reward for sustaining them is meddling in our laws and snarky comments about the "people's republic of New York" -etc.

Cut THE city free from the sinking ship that is upstate and let them enjoy the full redolence of their chosen leaders.

Anonymous said...

Where in NYC is there a shortage of billboards?

To say NYC zoning is overly restrictive is almost insane.