Petition Challenges Council on Signage

A petition from Cambridge citizens’ group Save Our Skyline has collected enough signatures to force the Cambridge City Council to reconsider a recent decision allowing an increase in the height limit of building signs in Cambridge.

The disputed regulation, which passed 6-3 in a Council meeting on Sept. 27, also repealed the “variance process”—a procedure that grants exemptions to sign limits.

Save Our Skyline alleges that the new regulation will lead to “a proliferation of unwanted corporate signs,” wrote spokeswoman Karen Schwartzman in an e-mail.

Last Friday, the coalition turned in 15,581 signatures to the City Council, double the number required for a petition to be considered. Save Our Skyline said that it would continue gathering signatures “to enable all registered voters in Cambridge who wish to express their opinion on this issue to do so,” Schwartzman wrote.

If the signatures are validated and certified, the Council will either repeal the amendment or put the issue on the ballot for voters to decide.

Although only registered voters were allowed to sign the petition, the canvassers had registration materials in case they came across “anyone who is unregistered and wants to sign the petition,” Schwartzman wrote.

Despite its popularity, Save Our Skyline faces accusations of misinformation from city officials.

In its campaign against the new regulation, Save Our Skyline has criticized the City Council for allowing signs that have “natural or external illumination.” However, externally lit signs were allowed in Cambridge before the new regulation, according to City Councilor Leland Cheung.

Contrary to Save Our Skyline’s charge, the Council’s decision actually strengthened sign regulation by no longer allowing internal illumination, according to James J. Rafferty, an attorney who has dealt with zoning issues for two decades.

Before the Council passed the regulation, Rafferty presented the Council with a letter citing a 50-square foot sign along the Charles River with internal illumination, suggesting that the contested regulation is actually more stringent than the old one.

Under the new regulation, “they would not be allowed...as only external illumination is permitted,” Rafferty said in his letter.

—Staff writer Sirui Li can be reached at sli@college.harvard.edu.