In September, 2017 I asked the question of didn’t we have enough billboards already in Chester County when West Whiteland residents became aware of the desire for the Billboard Baron who spent years having residents from Lower Merion and Haverford Townships attend billboard hearings because he wanted billboards in Bryn Mawr along Lancaster Avenue across from Our Mother of Good Counsel Church for one location. Then there was the whole Lower Merion billboard issue near Bryn Mawr Hospital. This has all been well documented in the media over the years.

A little closer to home for us in Chester County, in addition to whatever happened or hasn’t happened or will happen in West Whiteland, Tredyffrin is now tag you are in in the municipal game of billboards.

So this is the little Clockworks Building:

I love this place!  It and this place not too far away (next photo below) have always captured my imagination:

These little bits of our history are little architectural gems that dot our landscape.  And Clockworks is an Okie! (Iknow nothing about the other little building and how it came to be.)

Ok so this isn’t my circus in Tredyffrin, I don’t live in Tredyffrin, but I don’t care if the billboards are digital or SMD (surface mount diodes) or platinum encased Lincoln Logs, at what point are there enough? This is at a crazy intersection of a densely populated area. WHY?????

If you listen to the Tredyffrin township meeting recording (and who knows how long this stays on line) it sounds like this presentation occured as part of some litigation settlement agreement? Something like Tredyffrin was threatened with litigation over the way they treat billboards by the billboard company?

So yo Tredyffrin, even Phoenixville fought the billboards. And they WON:

Billboard baron loses fight over Phoenixville zoning
By Michael P. Rellahan mrellahan@21st-centurymedia.com May 28, 2014

WEST CHESTER – A Chester County Court judge dismissed a Philadelphia-area billboard baron’s challenge to the Phoenixville zoning ordinance that he claimed improperly excluded such signs from the borough.

In a May 20 ruling, Common Pleas Court Judge Mark Tunnell upheld the ruling by the borough’s zoning hearing board, finding that the zoning ordinance did allow for billboards and other large outdoor signs to be erected, just not in the location that Thaddeus Bartkowski III and his company, Chester County Outdoor, wanted to erect them.

Bartkowski had filed a substantive validity challenge to the ordinance in 2011, claiming that it unconstitutionally prohibited a type of business from the borough. In 2012, the zoning board ruled against Bartkowski, finding that the types of signs he wanted to erect were a permitted use, even if they were not specifically identified.

It makes you wonder sometimes in these situations whose rights are valued more, doesn’t it? But if Phoenixville could prevail, I am thinking so could Tredyffrin’s solicitor if challenged?

Below is a screen capture from the televised presentation and is this what you want people of Tredyffrin? I will leave you with that image. I put an arrow as to where Clockworks would be removed from.   I vote for Clockworks but I don’t live in Tredyffrin, so that is just my opinion.

I hope the residents of Tredyffrin step forward to preserve their own special historical gateways once again. (Tredyffrin might wish to check out a website called Scenic Philadelphia  and Preserve Our PA Towns /  No Billboards in the Burbs.)

I leave you with a fun fact: Maine is one of a handful of states (Maine, Vermont, Hawaii, Alaska)  that exist just fine without billboards so why can’t we?