The City is undertaking a refresh of its sign bylaw, the regulatory tool that defines almost every aspect of signage within Vancouver. As they note on their webpage, it’s an important opportunity to update regulations to reflect new technologies and trends. It’s also a great opportunity for public space advocates to have their say. Recent concerns around floating billboards in False Creek, outdoor projection advertising, or the longstanding issue of non-compliant billboards, make this a particularly important and timely engagement process.

The proposed engagement will unfold in two phases. The first phase focuses on business identification signs on private property. An online survey on this aspect of the regulations is now “live” and will be available until mid-September.

Following that, the second phase will look at outdoor advertising, focusing on advertising in public spaces, streets, and parks. It is aimed at developing a strategy for billboards, digital and transit shelter ads, as well as other advertising signs.

More information

• City of Vancouver – Sign Bylaw Update Webpage
• City of Vancouver – Online Survey
• Naoibh O’Connor, Vancouver Courier. Bylaw review a sign of the times. August 19, 2016

One of the new PavCo digital billboards. January 2012.

The new digital billboards installed around BC Place Stadium have been causing no end of headaches for nearby residents. The billboards are enormous – many times the size that would be allowed under the City’s Sign Bylaw – and they’re very bright. So bright, in fact, that one resident nearby told us that at 2:00am he can now read in his bedroom without any additional bedside lights whatsoever.

The signs were installed by PavCo, a Provincial Crown Corporation of the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation, following the renovation of the stadium. PavCo replaced a set of older, smaller digital billboards in roughly the same location – plunking the new ones down, it would seem, with nary a whit of forewarning or consultation.

The previous digital billboards – pre-renovation. April 2008.

Needless to say, people living nearby – particularly on the west side of the stadium – have been trying to get the billboards removed for some time. They’ve even started a blog on the subject, documenting the challenges they’ve encountered.

The City is also irked by the gargantuan signage. The Mayor wrote a letter to Minister Pat Bell, but it appears not to have resulted in much change.

Unfortunately for the City, the fact that these signs are located on a provincially-owned property means there’s a bit of jurisdictional conundrum. From a legal perspective, it doesn’t appear that the City can enforce the provisions of the municipal Sign Bylaw as a means to reign in the nuisance factor. That being said, it can, and has, asked PavCo to act in the spirit of good neighbourly relations and respect the provisions of the Bylaw. (It’s worth noting that it’s not clear if the intent of the City’s initial request was to encourage PavCo to reduce the size of the signs, remove them all together, or simply to eliminate the increased nuisance that comes from the brightness of the signs at night. We hope it was more than just the latter).

In any event, the issue of the PavCo signs is to be considered at City Council next week. Councillor Geoff Meggs has put a motion on notice that will be considered on Tuesday, January 17 @ 9:30am. The motion asks for “a clear action plan by PAVCO to bring the signs into compliance with City standards.”

If you’ve got a position on this issue we encourage you to make your voice heard by emailing geoff.meggs [at] vancouver.ca and mayorandcouncil [at] vancouver.ca. The motion will likely be referred to one of Council’s Standing Committees later in the week. If this happens members of the public will also be able to make a short presentation in person (5 minutes).

Here’s the motion from Councillor Meggs:

BC Place Stadium Digital Signs
MOVER: Councillor Geoff Meggs
SECONDER:
WHEREAS

1. residents around BC Place Stadium continue to report significant negative impact from the installation of large digital signs at three locations around the stadium;

2. these signs were not installed with advance public consultation and public input, as would have been required on a similar project under City jurisdiction;

3. efforts by Mayor Robertson to resolve public concerns through correspondence with Minister Pat Bell have not produced results;

4. claims by PAVCO that they have mitigated the impact and reduced brilliance and intrusiveness of the lighting have not produced the improvements sought by residents.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT Council direct the City Manager to advise PAVCO that the City requires a clear action plan by PAVCO to bring the signs into compliance with City standards and processes, failing which the City will seek further remedies to reduce neighbourhood impact.

It’s a given that advertisers are always looking for new ways to sell products and services – from ads in bathrooms and on building steps, and now – coming in January – on the fare cards used by Translink. From a marketing point of view, the more people you can get your message to, the better the “job” done by the ad. And newer and more novel forms of advertising help to fight that malaise that marketers dread the most: people tuning out of conventional forms of advertising hucksterism (a silent tragedy, we understand).

Unfortunately, the nature and placement of advertising often means that public space is impacted in a negative way. Urban spaces – sidewalks, utility poles, street-facing views – get targeted for branding activity and used as a medium to sell one or another projects.

To counter this, cities have long enacted mechanisms like sign bylaws in order to control the nature and distribution of outdoor advertising, particularly to limit its impact on the public realm. The intent is not to stop outdoor advertising, but to ensure that it doesn’t proliferate in an unchecked fashion.

By and large, we think the City of Vancouver has a pretty progressive Sign Bylaw. Unlike many cities, ours has fairly tight restrictions on the size of billboards, the presence of rooftop signage, the placement of sandwich boards and so forth. The challenge – and it’s a big challenge to be sure – has always been in the enforcement side of things. 

That, of course, bodes well for advertisers… who continue to test the limits of what they can get away with. As we’ve pointed out on a number of occasions, almost half the billboards in the city are actually non-compliant with the City’s bylaws… so if this is any indication, you can imagine the scale of the problem.

The image at the top of the page is another, newer example of the get-away-with-it-while-we-can school of advertising: a six-story projection sign for Oakridge Mall that loomed over the corner of Davie and Burrard on December 14. A rough guess places this non-compliant gem at about 8 times the allowed limit under the Sign-Bylaw… assuming that it even had the appropriate approvals in place (we doubt it).

It’s not the first time projection advertising has been used in Vancouver and likely won’t be the last… but it’s the biggest example that we’ve seen of this sort of thing in a while. 

The City is currently in the process of reviewing its Sign Bylaw. We hope there will be some opportunity to take a good look at the role that newer forms of advertising such as this will play in shaping the look of Vancouver. Our hope in this is that the City will continue to enact a progressive approach to outdoor signage and branding activity – because we believe that this will have a positive affect on the look of the city. Perhaps a clarification to advertisers might be in order as well: projection signs, ads etched into the sidewalk, mobile billboards – and all the other newer forms of marketing that have sprung up around Vancouver – are still forms of advertising subject to the City’s bylaw.

In the meanwhile, unless there’s a cry and hue that suggests that six-story projection advertisements actually strengthen the Vancouver aesthetic… we also hope that the City will work to reign in advertisers who opt to circumvent regulations.

The meeting will feature a slide-show and presentation by Marco D’Agostini, Planner with the City of Vancouver. Mr. ‘Agostini’s presentation will look at some of the work the City has been engaging in around billboards and signage.

For details on how to get to the meeting place, see the following map.