The CTA has withdrawn its proposal to install an LED billboard in the parking lot of the Blue Line’s Forest Park stop.
CTA officials confirmed the withdrawal, but offered no other details to the Review.
In April, the CTA applied for a conditional use application with the village’s department of public health and safety to put a billboard at the Forest Park L stop. Because 711 Des Plaines Ave. is in an industrial district, the village needed to pass a conditional use permit for the billboard.
But at a planning and zoning commission meeting May 20, board members voted against recommending that the village council approve the billboard’s conditional use permit.
“I think it’s going to stick out like a proverbial sore thumb as you drive up and down Des Plaines,” Kevin Hibbits, a planning and zoning commission board member said of the billboard at the May 20 meeting.
Outfront Media, the billboard company, did not respond to request for comment.
Withdrawing the billboard’s conditional use application is likely a result of the commission’s vote against recommending to the village council that they approve the conditional use permit. The planning and zoning commission vote was largely a result of resident pushback.
Most board members who voted to not recommend the permit said it would violate the second point of the village’s criteria for a conditional use permit: “That the conditional use will not be injurious to the use and enjoyment of other property in the immediate vicinity for the purposes already permitted, nor substantially diminish and impair property values within the neighborhood.”
“I don’t see anything that shows me that it will not impair values and reduce the enjoyment of other property nearby,” said commission board member Kerri McBride during the May 20 meeting.
“We are witnessing the injury and lack of enjoyment right here, with all these people speaking their concerns,” said Scott Whitebone, a planning and zoning commission board member.
Those who have spoken during public comment at the planning and zoning commission meetings and village council meetings since April 15 have expressed concerns about the billboard being too bright, tall and distracting.
“If this request is approved, I and all the other condo owners with eastern exposures will be exposed to a giant, flashing video board all day and all night,” said Gene Armstrong, who lives in the Residences at the Grove on Van Buren Street said at a commission meeting. “This is a gross disruption to our right to the quiet enjoyment of our property.”
“It’s ugly, it’s an eyesore, it’s going to be glaring into our windows and our neighbors’ windows,” Bridgett Rummel of Lathrop Avenue told the Review in the past. “For something that big and intrusive, it doesn’t bring any revenue to our town.”
After the announcement that the billboard’s conditional use application was withdrawn, one resident said she felt relieved.
“I think the amount of opposition was critical, but also having it be heard by the zoning commissioners, and then the council, was key,” said Bernadette McLain of Lathrop Avenue. “I’m just happy that they arrived at the right decision.”