Almost everybody loves a billboard on Rte. 1A in East Boston, which on third try wins variances

The Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday approved a billboard company's plan to replace the rusted old billboards down the hill from the Madonna Queen of the Universe Shrine on Rte. 1A in East Boston with a double-sided electronic signboard, after hearing from residents and elected officials that the plan would remove a local eyesore and help fund the religious order that owns the property.

The board last year rejected the proposal twice. Both times, the board actually voted 4-3 in favor, but state law requires 5 votes to approve variances. The company, Maverick Media, sued - but agreed to dismiss its suit this past July.

After yesterday's hearing, in which the company said it would agree to landscape the parcel and keep it clean for the entirety of its 30-year lease, and to use "light blocking" technology that would beam its messages only at drivers on the highway, the board voted 6-1 to approve variances for its plans for a 14 1/2 x 48-foot two-sided billboard on a single pole, with the top about 60 feet high. The company's attorney, James Costello, added that the "mountain" on which the shrine and surrounding homes sit is 100 feet high, so that would further ensure residents don't suddenly get ads frying their eyes.

Former City Councilor Sal LaMattina has lived up the hill from the current rusted structures, which used to advertise the shrine, for 30 years now. And the site has been "driving me crazy for 30 years," he said. He added, "people have been dumping on that hill for many, many years and it's really frustrating."

Current district City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata, at-large Councilor Erin Murphy, state Sen. Lydia Edwards and state Rep. Adrian Madaro all supported the proposal, the rent from which would help the Sons of Divine Providence, which owns the shrine and the land down the hill to Rte. 1A.

One resident, however, opposed the plans. Gail Miller, of Orient Avenue, said the site is in a conservation district and that while she would not oppose replacing the current billboards with identical, if less rusty, structures, the new electronic board would harm the wildlife that thrives on the hill now. And she said the religious order doesn't really need money, because it just sold a nursing home it owned for $10 million. "I think they're pretty flush if I may say so," she said, adding that while the Orient Heights Neighborhood Council voted to support the proposal, it only did so in a 7-6 vote.

Costello praised Miller as being like "a tiger up on the hill," but added, "I just think she's wrong on this."

There are no protected species on the hill and the city's conservation code in this case is a recommendation for minimizing environmental harm, not an outright ban, he said, adding that he could not think of a better place for a billboard than on the side of that stretch of Rte. 1A, a busy roadway with no homes along it. And the billboard company's maintenance will mean the end of "rats the size of cats and coyotes that are residing in this mountain," he said.

Board member Hansy Better Barraza, who voted against the proposal last year but voted for it yesterday, asked why the Sons of Divine Providence have never maintained the land. Jeff Turco, the order's attorney, said it had simply been pressed with other issues, such as trying to maintain the land around the shrine at the top of the hill. He said neighbors knew the order was struggling financially and so none pressed the brothers on cleaning up the eyesore at the bottom of the hill.

The sign needed variances for being within 660 feet of a highway, its size and being in a conservation district. Costello said the proposal legally deserved variances because its unusual topography - a small flat area next to a steep slope - means there's nothing else that could be built there.

Member Katie Whewell cast the lone no vote, because, she said, the new sign was far larger than the two billboards it would replace.