Billboard Permit Fraud: 127 Strachan
A certain former city councillor never ceases to amaze us here at IllegalSigns.ca.
Earlier this month we wrote that this dude is operating a billboard on his land at 153 Dufferin for which a fraudulent permit was obtained.
Turns out that’s the least of this dude’s problems. Despite the fact that much of the land was located within 60 metres of existing, legal third party billboards, permits have been issued to erect expressway signs.
This land is in the way of the proposed Front Street Extension. Then, when the City of Toronto staffers set out to enter into expropriation agreements for this man’s land to build the extension, they didn’t quite do their due diligence on his billboards. Somebody in charge of expropriations, whoever it was, really screwed up.
The cost of his land kept on increasing. The only use of this land is billboards. Let’s just say if the Front Street Extension ever gets built, the taxpayers of Toronto will be on the hook to purchase, at full price, a whole bunch of billboards that have illegally obtained permits, along with a bunch of billboards that are seriously deviating from plan. In this way, the advertising industry will monetize their fraud with taxpayer money.
We will fully cover the whole sordid story at a later date but today we will deal with 127 Strachan, another piece of land also owned by this very colourful man.
In March 1998, Pattison Outdoor obtained this permit to erect a fascia sign on the southerly elevation of 127 Strachan:
This is what the fascia sign looks like:
In order to obtain the permit, Pattison lied in this document, where it attested that the fascia sign was not located within 60M of a pedestal sign:
In fact the sign is located within about 15M of this third party pedestal sign just east of Adelaide and Strachan:
We expect the fascia permit to be revoked unless the pedestal sign is removed. But like we said, 127 Strachan is the least of our friend’s worries. If only the City would build the Front Street Extension and buy his billboards and he wouldn’t have to worry about billboard permits being revoked.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Whoa there!
Don’t give Joe Pantalone another justification for building the extension - “It’ll mean less billboards!”
June 26th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Can you be clear who this councillor is?
Is it the supposed tree man….Mayor Miller’s right hand guy….?
How many illegal billboards does this guy have….this would make a great story.
Looking forwards to reading all about it.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I believe the unnamed former councillor is Fred Dominelli. Dominelli was appointed to Council as the representative for Ward 17 when Betty Disero resigned in 2003. Dominelli ran for the same seat in the 2006 election, placing a distant third. Dominelli has a friendship that spans decades with Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone, as they both immigrated to Canada from the same town in Italy and attended school in Toronto together.
Dominelli owns a great deal of land in Toronto. Although there is no proof, many people (including John Barber) have used innuendo to connect strategic and timely land purchases made by Dominelli to insider knowledge. The example most often used to insinuate wrong-doing is the parcel of land related to the Front Street Extension.
June 27th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Fascinating!
And what’s a few million here or there when it comes to moving cars.
Much better to move the GO tracks to ensure our priorities are straight.
And who might be in charge of expropriations?
Came across something else in Tony O’Donohue’s book about other millions going into private sector pockets - an Ordnance St. property was available for c. 1M a couple of decades ago, but by the time it was bought was $4m.
The Can. Lead/Smelter site just west of Front S.t apparently cost $38 to get it to the state where it might get dug out for the FSE tunnel, though we don’t seem to be able to explore transit options for this quarter-billion to $300M folly.
Ah -west end politricks in a carrupt town.
Thanks for this
h