Larry Vann Tries to Pull a Fast One on Oakville, and the Ontario Court of Appeal Shuts Him Down
Yesterday we covered the Ontario Superior Court’s decision to quash the Oakville Signs by-law and order Oakville to issue billboard permits to Vann Media.
Today, we take a look at Larry Vann’s post-decision permit scheming and the resulting Ontario Court of Appeal decision that killed it.
Larry Vann, we noted yesterday, was the billboard developer that slammed the City of Mississauga with so many simultaneous permits for painted 14′x48′ signs that Mississauga amended their signs by-law in an emergency meeting of City Council to outlaw 14′x48’s.
An while Larry Vann dipped his toes into chump gigs like advertising on Pizza Boxes, he never lost his M.O. - slamming municipalities with permit applications.
But this time the Ontario Court of Appeal slammed Larry back.
In 2000, Vann Media sued the City of Oakville after Oakville refused to issue permits for 10′x20′ two hundred square foot billboards. Oakville won in the trial court but lost in the Ontario Court of Appeal. Supreme Court of Canada then ruled that Oakville could restrict the size of billboards to 80 square feet, but could not completely ban them. So Oakville won on size and lost on location.
Oakville’s new signs by-law, written after the Supreme Court decision, allowed 80 square foot billboards in limited E2 industrial areas. Larry Vann then applied to the court for permission to build 86 eighty square foot mini-billboards in 52 locations, only 11 of which were E2 zones. He never actually made complete permit applications with Oakville Buildings.
When the by-law was struck down last month by Justice Gray, the Judge ruled that Vann could only have permits for those 11 locations in E2 zones:
To allow Vann to erect billboards at all 52 locations, regardless of whether the Town might be able to lawfully prohibit some of them, would be unfair to the residents of the Town. The bylaw contemplates that billboards can be erected in E2 Employment Zones. The Town is thus prepared to tolerate billboards within E2 Zones. Overlaid on that limitation are the other restrictions that, in practical terms, limit the territory within which billboards can be erected to a very small area. To use the words of s. 24(1) of the Charter, it would be appropriate and just to require the Town to permit Vann to erect billboards in the 11 locations for which it has made application that are within the E2 Zones, regardless of whether the other restrictions in the bylaw have been met.
Except that Larry Vann never officially applied for permits for those 11 locations. He only applied for the permits this month after the decision of the court. So when Vann Media and Oakville sat down to negotiate all of a sudden Larry claimed that in fact 26 of his mini-billboards were in E2 zones; and then he claimed that most of these signs are double sided; and that in total he is entitled to permits for a 47 mini-billboard ad-faces pursuant to Justice Gray’s decision. Here is the affidavit of Peter Kozelj, Senior Zoning Examiner for the City of Oakville:
Vann now contends that there are 26 proposed sign locations within E2 Zones, most of which are proposed to have two sign faces, for a total of 47 proposed signs. The 26 proposed sign locations stand in contrast with the total of 11 E2 Zone locations referred to in Justice Gray’s Reasons, as set out in paragraph 66 thereof.
It is therefore not surprising that Oakville decided it could do business with Larry Vann and made a motion in the Ontario Court of Appeal to set aside Justice Gray’s order to issue the permits. Here is the Notice of Motion:
It is also not surprising that Justice Rouleau granted this motion in its entirety. Here is Justice Rouleau’s handwritten order which entirely stayed Justice Gray’s order and killed Larry Vann’s scheme to slam Oakville like he slammed Mississauga:
Justice Rouleau set a date for the appeal of May 15, 2008, which is in the same week the Titan trial is scheduled to be heard. He also asked the application’s judge, Gray, to clarify if his order (which is stayed nonetheless) allows 11 signs or 26 signs.
That’s what happens when you get greedy, Larry.
Stick to your pizza boxes.
