Thursday, August 7th, 2008 ::: City of York

Today we continue our look into illegal billboards in the City of York, probably the dirtiest of the former municipalities on an illegal billboard per capita basis. Take a look at these two Pattison signs along Jane Street, on the CPR right-of-way:

This railway is in fact the borderline between North York and York. Buildings Department has determined that these signs are in York (which means they could very well be in North York).
Shortly after amalgamation, Pattison Outdoor applied for variances to build twenty-seven billboards in the City of York. York had a cap on the number of billboards in the City but Pattison was able to obtain this amendment from the Mel Lastman City Council permitting twenty-seven new locations - new locations that could be moved to other locations in York.

Two of those locations listed in the staff report are “CP Railway right-of-way E. side Jane Street at overpass north of Weston Rd. ” and “CP Railway right-of-way W. side Jane Street at overpass north of Weston Rd. ” Problem is that Pattison could not build signs at these location due to the height of the Jane Street overpass and the 6 metre height limit in the York signs by-law.

Let’s start by taking a look at the sign on the west side of Jane Street. Here it is, it is 18 metres west of Jane:

For this sign, Pattison obtained a height variance. Pattison originally applied for a variance for a 9 metre high sign. That was amended to a 13.8 metre sign and City Council granted a variance for a 13.8 metre sign.

Problem is, the sign on the west side of Jane Street is not 13.8 metres high - it is 15.24 metres high. We measured it ourselves.

But that’s minor compared to the sign on the east side of Jane Street. Here is the sign on the east side of Jane:

While the sign appears in the MSN Live Maps photograph above, look at the a satellite map photograph from 2005, according to map.toronto.ca:

The sign on the west side of Jane appears but nothing on the east side.The current Google Map also does not show a sign on the east side of Jane Street. Nevertheless it is there in the more recent  MSN map, and it was certainly there yesterday when we took that photo.

Pattison never applied for or obtained a height variance for the sign on the east side of Jane Street. But remember that Pattison obtained permission to put a sign in that location, under the newly increased cap, and in accordance with the 6 metre height restrictions in the by-law. Pattison in fact later applied to move the permitted sign from the east side of Jane Street to somewhere else in York. Sometime in 2007, Pattison then installed the sign on the east side of Jane Street, higher than the by-law allows and in violation of the cap.

Another problem with the sign on the east side of the street is failure to comply with 91 metre separation distance requirements to the sign on the west side of the street.

Pattison Outdoor has a major problem in York. We kid you not when we estimate that over 70% of the Pattison Outdoor billboards in the City of York are illegal in one way or another, mainly by way of size or by way of cap-and-replace fraud; about 35% of the CBS and Astral Media signs York are illegal. There are no other players in York. CBS has lots of legal signs on City of York property. About 20 years ago CBS had a monopoly in York but they didn’t work at keeping it.

Since billboard permits are the property of the billboard company in York, a new billboard company cannot enter York unless it applies for a mural permit. York’s mural permits aren’t subject to the cap and anyone can get a mural permit to paint a billboard in York today, even on a wall facing a street. Nobody wants them. You have could put a fascia sign on a mural permit and gotten away with it. Nobody tried. York is saturated. Everyone else wants to build illegal billboards downtown or on the highway. Yet, without any permits, Pattison will build 15 metre high $75,000 structures that loom over subdivisions to put up measly 10×20s on Jane Street and Weston Road, where nobody else wants to live let alone put up a billboard.