It’s been a long, wild ride for the city’s new comprehensive sign bylaw. And I’m not talking about the past week’s worth of extended and then delayed council meetings that saw the debate stretch on from last Tuesday (Dec. 1) to this afternoon. From its humble beginnings nearly 12 years ago as a wholly confusing mish-mash of conflicting bylaws leftover from the pre-amalgamated metro boroughs to the Toronto Public Space Committee Billboard Battalion’s assertion that half of the billboards in the city are illegal to an all-out crusade by Illegal Signs.ca activist Rami Tabello, right up to last month’s deluge of industry backlash — for those of us who have been following the developments for any amount of time, today’s city council vote in favour of adopting the bylaw and billboard tax is definitely a peak in the story arc.While Tabello and the TPSC have clearly established their position on billboards, it’s only recently that the industry — most notably the OMAC ad giants — have offered their arguments in an easily navigable format. Their main objection is with the tax, which they say will actually end up charging them about $2 million more than they will earn in a year. Or, as the industry’s recent billboard campaign asks: “How can a City tax an industry more than it earns?” Ironically, at least two of these signs appear to be illegal, but that’s another story.The tax itself caused a bit of a stir in the council chambers as well, but most councillors were concerned because they thought that the city would be getting a lot more money (which is odd, considering that city staff originally underestimated the total area of billboards in the city). In any case, the city looks to create about $9 million in revenue for beautification and cultural projects — and that’s after they’ve accounted for the 19-member billboard-enforcement team. Of course there’s no way to know for certain how much of the industry’s earnings this tax money represents since they aren’t willing to release any of their revenue numbers. When the bylaw and tax came before council last week, the afternoon debate stretched on for a number of hours before council paused to deal with the girls’ hockey ice time issue — a debate that also stretched on into a second council session. Still, in the time allotted, Councillor Norm Kelly attempted to amend the bylaw to allow for longer leases, less restrictions and less tax — not to mention allowing for all signs to be converted to electronic display! Some of the other debate I happened to catch included Councillor A.A. Heaps' motions that the city let the industry come forward with their balance sheets and then we can revisit the tax rate — “we may make an adjustment upwards.” Councillor Joe Mihevc calls this a “put up or shut up” motion. On the other side of the debate, Councillor Karen Stintz says that this is a clever way to fund the mayor’s Clean and Beautiful City initiative, but wants a better appeal mechanism. In the end, Kelly’s amendments are shot down, while the sign bylaw and billboard tax pass pretty much as they are written, with votes of 29-12 and 29-16 respectively. Let the enforcement begin.
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