Thursday, September 11th, 2008 ::: Billboard Permit Fraud

All the billboards at 25 Richmond Street East are currently illegal. We showed you why in The Goings on at 25 Richmond Street East.

They weren’t always illegal - they just started off and ended up that way.

In April 1995, Gould Outdoor, a predecessor company of Pattison Outdoor applied for a permit to build two 10x’20′ ground signs on this surface parking lot which was, at the time, a roof deck of an underground parking lot.

Gould submitted a permit application in which Gould attested that both proposed ground signs were located in excess of 60 metres from another third party ground sign facing the same street. In fact, the ground sign on the Richmond Street frontage was located within 60 metres a Mediacom 10x’20′ which is was facing Richmond Street.

Pattison did in fact remove the pedestal sign that was located at the corner of Victoria and Richmond Street, but could not remove the Mediacom ground sign. The building inspector wrote this in his notes:

95/06/23 2 signs installed - existing cube sign @ corner of Richmond Street E & Victoria was removed & 1 ground sign installed in its place of the sign installed on Richmond Street E - to check distance to Mediacom sign east of 35 Richmond Street East

95/06/27 sign on Richmond St E is 55 metres away

The inspector then issued an Order to Comply. After receiving no response, he repeatedly called the property owner. On December 12, 1995, the property owner wrote this letter to Pattison Outdoor’s Sid Catalano:

The letter states: Mr Chin-Lue [the inspector] was quite upset that Gould was not responding to his repeated telephone calls which related to two signs installed on Citicom’s property and he threatened legal action against Citicom if the necessary permits were not applied for immediately.

Pattison Outdoor then sent its Director of Legislation, Sid Catalano, to apply for a variance from the very same planning department that Catalano worked for two years earlier. The Planning Department found no problems with the false information that Pattison filed in its permit application and recommend that City Council grant the variance:

The staff report sheds more light on the issue: The first variance results from the fact that Sign No. 1 was inadvertently installed four metres too close to an existing round sign to the east… Sign No. 2 was installed as approved but was alter moved by the owner some five meters to the southwest, because, according to the applicant it conflicted with the functioning of the driveway…

Of course, the City’s former signs planner would never install an illegal billboard unless it was “inadvertant.” After the variance was obtained, permits were granted to maintain the illegal signs.

The signs are now, once again, illegal on account of the original non-conforming flagpole structures being replaced with lollipop structures last year, without a permit, when the underground parking lot was filled-in.

Note that the cube sign at the intersection of Richmond East and Victoria has been re-installed and upgraded. Every billboard on this property is now illegal.