Harmar’s zoning hearing board upheld a 2021 decision rejecting an outdoor advertising company’s request to make a billboard facing the Allegheny River near the Hulton Bridge electronic.

The zoning hearing board on Thursday formally denied the request from Kenjoh Outdoor Advertising to convert the side facing the Allegheny River toward Oakmont to be electronic.

“We thought it was best for the community based on the testimony,” board Chairman Barry Busbey said.

Reached Friday, a Kenjoh representative had no comment.

In August 2021, Kenjoh was permitted to build a three-sided billboard on the property, owned by Norfolk Southern, on the Harmar side of the Hulton Bridge. At that time, the board imposed a condition that the sign facing the river would never be converted to be electric. Currently, the only side of the billboard facing westbound on Freeport Road is electronic.

Kenjoh sought to remove that condition through an application in June and argued that an electronic sign would create more advertising opportunities for local businesses.

Kenjoh President John Kiriah testified during the July 27 hearing that, when the billboard was first approved, there was concern that sign lighting would be visible and impact the neighborhood across the river, but now that the sign has been built, there is high demand for advertising from local businesses.

Dan Nielson, also of Kenjoh, testified that a study demonstrated anyone 300 feet away from the billboard wouldn’t experience any more light than a 100-watt light bulb would create from 100 feet away. There are no homes, parks or outdoor recreation areas within 300 feet of the billboard — just a sewage plant, railroad and a bridge, Nielson said.

He also showed information from a Federal Highway Administration report that found where there are billboards, drivers sometimes look at them but overall attention to the road did not decrease.

However, Kiriah testified that Kenjoh was “okay with whatever position” the board decided, the report said.

Data from PennDOT found that average daily traffic on the Hulton Bridge is close to 22,700 cars.

Only one person, State Rep. Joe McAndrew, D-Penn Hills, commented against the proposal during the July hearing. McAndrew expressed his concern for neighbors and said he received complaints from constituents outside Harmar since the billboard went up.

In its decision, the board ruled that Kenjoh didn’t establish enough evidence to overturn the condition.

Kenjoh Outdoor Advertising’s request to convert a billboard side to be electronic in Harmar isn’t the first in the lower Alle-Kiski Valley regarding such displays this summer.

East Deer’s zoning board last week ruled that three of four electronic billboards, pitched by Oliver Outdoor, should be approved. Those displays include two double-faced billboards at 1101 Freeport Road and a single-faced billboard at 1300 Freeport Road.

That board believed that “more deliberation and dialogue” was required before it could render a decision on the fourth billboard, at 918 Bellview St.

East Deer commissioners are in the process of reworking its ordinance regulating billboards. Oliver Outdoor had claimed the township’s ordinance was substantively invalid because of its total exclusion of billboards as a use.

In Tarentum, crews raised an Oliver Outdoor electronic billboard next to the Tarentum Bridge on July 14, ending a yearslong legal battle between the company and the borough.

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