At 600 Finch Ave West, Steve McGregor Builds a Sign Seven Feet Too High
Steve McGregor, a former bill poster who is currently Pattison Outdoor’s Vice-President of Leasing decided that he would build Pattison’s sign at 600 Finch Avenue West higher than permitted:
The North York signs by-law prohibits third party signs on undeveloped land if the lot is smaller than 43,560 square feet. 600 Finch Ave West is 39,500 square feet so the sign did not comply. In 2002, Pattison applied for and obtained this variance to allow it to a sign at 600 Finch despite the size of the lot. The variance decision states:
The applicant proposes to install a V-shaped ground sign with a sign area of 10 feet by 20 feet. The proposed sign will have a height of 25 feet above the adjacent grade in compliance with the sign by-law requirements.
The by-law does indeed limit the height of sign to 25 feet. Now look at Pattison’s sign. The sign face is 10′x20′. That means that the height of the pole between the ground and the bottom of the sign face must be no greater than 1.5 times the distance from the bottom of the sign face to the top of the sign face. That’s an easy way to measure. The sign at 600 Finch Ave West is 32 feet tall. You need to make a small trigonometric adjustment, but it’s de minimis.
Pattison has a lot of signs that are too high. It has about five of them on Lake Shore Boulevard East, east of the DVP, with permits that were issued just a few years ago.
The sign at 600 Finch Ave West was built to be visible above the spruce trees, which Pattison cannot legally remove.
Either that or Steve McGregor is compensating for something.
