Illegal Astral Media Back-Up at Dupont and Dufferin
Welcome back to Back-Ups where we examine the issue of billboards that obtained permits for a single face, only to have second face illegally installed on the backside of the sign.
Oftentimes when an billboard company has a single-sided sign they will apply for and obtain a permit to double-side the sign. In many cases, when the original single-sided sign was built a double-sided sign at that location may not have been economical to operate, but due to demographic changes and population growth a double-sided sign became desirable.
When the companies can’t obtain a permit to back-up the sign, they do it anyway.
Today we look at Astral Media’s roof sign at 1140 Dupont Street:
We suspected this sign was a back-up without having to file a freedom of information inquiry to look at the permit. We became suspicious of this billboard because the numberplates do not match. Astral Media’s numberplates are sequential, but on this sign the westerly face, the one with more visibility, is numbered 111:
The easterly face of the sign is numbered 366:
If the easterly face of the sign was built at the same time as the westerly face of the sign, the easterly would have been numbered either 110 or 112.
We later filed an FOI and examined a copy of the (microfilmed) permitted plan, which confirmed our suspicions that the sign was backed up.
The reason Astral Media couldn’t obtain a permit to back the sign up is because in July 1995, after conducting a study of the proliferation of roof signs along Dupont Street, the City of Toronto enacted an amendment to the signs by-law concerning Dupont . That amendment increased the setback from a residential zone to a roof sign enough to make Astral’s billboard non-conforming.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:19 am
so how many illegal Astral signs are on our streets now after they won that furniture RFP?
Wasn’t that one of the conditions for them to remove all of their illegal ads?
November 7th, 2008 at 2:33 am
I can’t answer your first question (though I remember Rami saying he estimates around 100 — or maybe it was “hundreds”), but to your second question:
No, it wasn’t one of the conditions. There’s a whole story I’ll tell you sometime, but the short version is that in April 2007, just before the report recommending Astral went to the Executive Committee, councillors started pushing to have the awarding of the contract be conditional upon Astral complying with the law, but the councillors were firmly instructed by legal staff that it was too late to add in this additional criterion; in the worst-case scenario, the lawyers said, all three bidders could sue the City for the entire value of the contract. It was, apparently, too late in the game to change the rules.
If IllegalSigns.ca had been around a year earlier, when Council was formulating the original RFP, I’m sure such a condition would have been included.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Dude, I’m not so sure that such a condition would have been included if IllegalSigns.ca existed during the formulation of the original RFP. In fact, I’m pretty sure City Staff would have found a way around it.