Nearly every community council meeting taking place at City Hall these days attracts someone from the Billboard Battalion, a sub-group of the Toronto Public Space Committee (TPSC) that’s out to fight the growing number of new billboards that are cropping up around our city. The job of these TPSCers is to comb the community council agendas looking for companies who are applying for a variance — permission to break a bylaw so they can erect a sign that’s bigger, for example, than the city permits. When they find them (and there’s usually a bunch of variance applications made at every community council meeting), they attend the meetings to protest the proposed signs.
They say you can’t fight city hall, but in this case, the Billboard Battalion actually often convinces councillors not to approve such variences. For more information about the campaign and how to get involved, click here.
I received an email from BB organizer Alison Gorbould today that described an application the Toronto and East York community council will vote on at their meeting Tuesday, June 13. It may be of interest to Spacing wire readers:
In February, the release of an image of what the Metropolis complex being built at Yonge and Dundas will look like was met with disbelief.
Councillor Kyle Rae ( councillor_rae@toronto.ca or 416-392-7903) smugly responded that the sign variances were approved in 1998 and 2000 — and that if people didn’t like it, they should have said so then. Case closed.
Well, well, well. It seems that Penex Metropolis Ltd. has decided it wants to change its plans.They want to take advantage of “advances in technology” and increase the number of signs. And they need permission from community council this Tuesday (agenda item 54). You can read the agenda here.
Staff has recommended agreeing to these changes. They argue that the new plan is similar to the old one and even decreases the overall signage very slightly. But in fact it increases the number of signs (and hence the overwhelming clutter) significantly. And “advances in technology”? That can only mean more video screens, etc.
Rae is telling everyone that this is great because the total signage is less. He doesn’t mention that he’s talking about a change from 2050.61 square metres to 2020.60.
Whoop-de-doo.
The pictures below show the proposed plans so you can compare. We may not be able to stop it, but we can try to stop it from getting worse.
21 comments
I just wrote a quick email to my local councillor (Watson), plus Rae and Miller. I can’t help but feel, though, that Rae might be right in a way — Dundas Square is a catastrophe, and will remain so until a natural disaster comes along and wipes the slate clean. Debating a few square metres of space, or a couple of extra video screens, feels kind of futile. Is there any way to revoke these “variances”?
I don’t know if D-Square is a catastrophe. And when people are talking about the square, do they mean the actual square, or the buildings around it?
It’s often full of people – people seem to like being in it, even when there aren’t big events. I’d hate to argue with all those people. And their kids. They seem to like those fountains.
I don’t mind so much vulgar display of electrical power concentrated in one spot either. The problem, for me, would be if it was allowed to spread elsewhere in the city. But limiting it to D-Square, sure – how obscene can it get? That’s interesting. Making sure it doesn’t spread out of the square area, that’s important.
The square itself is okay. I would’ve put some trees in it, but it’s okay. My impression of the place is dominated by the billboards, though. The fountains are nice.
I don’t know who hangs out there. A lot of tourists. Some travellers I spoke with briefly after taking their picture were pretty underwhelmed. I think the Lonely Planet had compelled them to go there.
Containment does seem like the best option at this point.
The item in the Billboard Batallion update that has me angry enough to show up on Tuesday to make a deputation is the request from Pattison to put up two large illuminated ING Canada signs and logos near the tops of two sides of the beautiful Ontario Power Generation building on the southwest corner of College and University (the big curvy mirror).
“Containment does seem like the best option at this point.”
If only containment worked. That’s why they call it “ad creep.”
And, yeah, I’d be fine with containment, but Rae just uses that as an excuse to allow more signs around the Dundas Square area. There is no indication that the concentration of signs in the one-block radius of Yonge and Dundas has at all reduced the number of new billboards granted variances in Rae’s ward.
Oh, btw – the colour rendition is mostly based on the proposed plan, so if you want to compare the proposed vs. the currently approved plans, you can see them here:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b65/EcoMupi/VARIANCE/3approved-yonge.gif
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b65/EcoMupi/VARIANCE/1approved-dundas.gif
According to the staff report, there were originally signs A-F, now there are signs A-J.
Dundas Square needs GREEN, and pronto. It’s not at all inviting.
Also, it’s not only tourists that hang out there. Want proof? Pretend you’re a tourist. Stand in front of the info booth, with an open map or tour brochure and you’ll see how quickly the “locals” come out of camoflage to offer to “help” you. Dundas Square, as it is now, is rather gross.
I’ll move away from Toronto when this horrendous complex gets built. But if I don’t, I definatly will avoid this area like the plague.
Jerrold> Do all those locals who come out of the woodwork think it’s gross too? Is that why they’re there?
Whenever I visit NYC, I always check out Times Square. Other cities have a glitzy square or area, too (though not my own).
It seems to me that this is what they’re trying for here, albeit on a smaller scale. I see no problem with it.
You should be careful describing variance applications as attempts to break the bylaw. Variances are standard practice in all areas of the public realm. An application for a variance is seeking permission to deviate from the bylaw, not wilfully disregard it.
Frankly I don’t blame them for wanting to upgrade the technology behind the billboards – it’s light years ahead of where it was in 1998.
All that said, I’m not fan of ad creep (or ad overload in the case of Metropolis), and I think it’s great that a group of people work to limit it.
Rae’s line about having missed the chance to complain reminds me so much of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “The plans for [the destruction of earth] have been on display in your local planning office on Alpha Centauri for 50 earth years. If you can’t be bothered to take the slightest interest in local affairs, I’ve no sympathy at all.
Shawn M> I don’t think the local kids that watch and wait for tourists to present themselves really care whether or not there are trees in the square.
“You should be careful describing variance applications as attempts to break the bylaw.” This may be true, but after following sign variances at Community Council for a while, you can’t help but come to the conclusion that many of the applications are in fact attempts to break the bylaw. Ad companies will often request variances for billboards that had been erected illegally years earlier because they know that Community Council is less likely to turn down a variance request if the billboard is already in place. There is a very willful disregard and disrespect shown for the City of Toronto and its bylaws on the part of “out-of-home” advertisers, and that, much more than the billboards themselves, is what frustrates me.
And I LOVE the quote from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That is so fucking EXACTLY what it is like to deal with City Hall.
To be honest, I think the new proposal is better than the “approved” one. Sure, it’s tacky as all hell, but the old one was just as landscape-cluttering and boring to boot.
I’ll tell you what they need down there: more neon. If you’re going to build a cheap ripoff of times square, the least you can do is throw a little flashing neon into the mix!
No, seriously. :p
As long as the ads are of Asian-European-Time’s Square quality and not cheap backlit ads, I’ll be happy (regardless of how many of them there are).
Sadly, they approved it — toronto.ca/legdocs/2006/agendas/council/cc060627/te5rpt/cl046.pdf
Like was mentioned above, the proposal is better than the approved. If you’re going to have ads, having dynamic well designed ones is better than a bunch of lit up cheap billboards.
As long as this is contained to the current area, I’m happy. Every city eventually develops a highly commercial area which attracts glitzy ads. This is ours.
Wow..you guys are a bunch of douchebags. You hate the bright-lights=big-city action so much, move out to the Burbs. I can’t WAIT for Metropolis to be finished. It’s gonna be AMAZING.
I have lived in toronto all my life and as RebelScum put it, the bright lights is one of the things that makes a City because it represents the vibrancy and excitement that exists. I agree that the extent of the billboards should be contained but what’s there now isn’t all that spectacular, it could definitely handle a lot more intensity in terms of taller buildings and more innovative signage (like the ones in Shibuya, Tokyo). The saddest thing about Dundas Square is not the Square or the billboards, it’s the quality of the materials they used for Metropolis (Toronto Life Square). Poor design and building materials is what will kill Dundas Square, not the billboards
i find that Dundas Square is spectacular very futuristic and there is nothing wrong with the material that they r using if something the whole city of Toronto needs a little more light and outdoor technology. i think billboard and outdoor screens have a very positive side “educating and some times motivating us to achieve some goals in order to obtain the product that is displayed on the billboard or the back of your mined for the last 3 months” I’m not saying that the whole city should be in billboard but i can’t say that there is to many…