No more giant signs?
Trevor Nichols - Mar 22, 2017 - Biz Releases

Photo: Google Street View

Kelowna council will soon vote on a bylaw that would dramatically change business signage in the city.

At a special presentation Monday morning city staff showed off a new Signs Bylaw that City Planner Ryan Roycroft said would be a “reasonably significant departure from previous policy.”

The bylaw would bar digital animated signs on commercial buildings, reduce the maximum allowed height of freestanding signs by almost half and officially allow sandwich board signs on private property.

“We’re just trying to get a away from all the sign clutter and really trying to minimize it where we can,” Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran explained March 22.

In his report on the new bylaw Roycroft points out council has been dealing with the issue of animated signs through the development permit process for more than a year. Generally speaking, council has allowed them on service buildings like churches and schools, but not on commercial buildings.

The bylaw would put those inclinations into law, banning digital signs on commercial buildings. As Roycroft writes in the report, city staff can’t see “any public good, nor aesthetic value” in allowing businesses to install the animated signs.

Further, he says, the community itself doesn’t want them.

Two thirds of respondents who took part in an online survey about signage in Kelowna said they would support restricting digital signs, and only 13 per cent thought they were appropriate in local shopping areas.

“Based on City policy and public comment, there does not appear to be any compelling reason to expand digital animated signage to commercial zones with this iteration of the bylaw,” Roycroft writes.

The bylaw would also addresses freestanding signs, which are most noticeable along the Harvey Avenue corridor. It would see the maximum allowed height scaled back from eight to five metres.

Considering Kelowna’s current eight-metre restriction is already lower than most nearby cities, Roycroft says the city could set itself apart from its neighbours.

“By substantially reducing freestanding sign sizes, Kelowna may set itself apart and begin to distinguish itself stylistically,” he writes, adding council could still approve  taller signs by request.

Basran, who strongly supports the bylaw, said the signage cluttering Highway 97 “looks terrible,” and that he doesn’t want to see it get out of control

“We know there’s other parts of the world, and tourist destinations just like Kelowna, that don’t have nearly as much signage as we do and businesses there are doing just fine,” he said.

Finally, the last major change would see the bylaw make it legal to set up a sandwich board sign on private property.

Right now most sandwich boards are prohibited in Kelowna, but Roycroft admitted the ban might be “excessive” and is “difficult to enforce.” Evidence of that is the fact that many downtown establishments put them out on a daily basis.

Through the new bylaw staff are recommending sandwich board signs be allowed on private property, outside of the path of pedestrian travel. No signs would be permitted on public property.

With council now more familiar with the new bylaw, City of Kelowna Communications Manager Tom Wilson says it would be in front of them for a vote as soon as mid-April. Basran said council family strongly supports the bylaw, and that it will likely to pass at that time.


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