Sunday, May 24th, 2009 ::: Ad Nauseam

Jim Pattison is about five feet tall, but the sign that he built on Parliament Street, south of Queen Street East, is 35.7 feet tall, and that’s part of what makes it illegal:

Now, let’s take a look at how this sign got built. In 2003, 167 Parliament Street was a surface parking lot. Take a look at the aerial photograph from 2003:

The red box represents the location of Pattison’s pre-existing 10′x20′ ground sign. The green box represents the current location of the too-tall ground sign. As you can see, the sign was not there in 2003; in fact, there was an L-shaped building at the location where the ground sign currently resides.

What happened was this lot was developed into a Shoppers Drug Mart and Pattison lost their ground sign, which was located near the Parliament and Queen intersection for maximum exposure. A source at Pattison Outdoor tells us that Pattison’s leasing manager, Steve McGregor, ordered the building of the illegal sign, rather than apply for the required variance . This is what the lot looks like today:

As you can see, sometime after 2003, Pattison removed their existing sign from this lot and installed the sign photographed above. The work Pattison did was non-conforming and required a variance from the signs by-law. That variance was never obtained. The new sign location is non-conforming pursuant to the rules in place since the mid-1990s for the following reasons:

• The sign is located within 60M of a pre-existing CBS Outdoor 10′x20′ roof sign, pictured in the yellow box in the 2003 aerial map
• The sign is higher than the maximum height allowed in an industrial zone. The sign is 10.9 Metres high whereas the maximum height is 10 Metres.

As a result of the height non-compliance, we will be able to obtain the removal of this sign without the revocation of the improperly issued permit that Pattison obtained after filing false information with respect to spatial separation from CBS’s sign.