City council backed off when it came to some restrictive rules around mobile signs Monday night as it approved the city’s new sign bylaw.
Following guidance from council made at the committee of the whole level earlier this month, city staff’s draft bylaw included banning neon mobile signs and allowing them to be located at a business for only 14 days at a time.
But after hearing some impassioned pleas from businesses and mobile sign owners, and wading through a cornucopia of correspondence on the issue, council voted to allow the mobile signs to be in place for 30 days at a time and voted to allow neon.
The sign bylaw update was the first it has had since 1996. Staff told council it would be looked at with more frequency moving forward, likely around every five years to some degree.
Council voted 9-4 in favour of 30- day periods instead of 14 days and the vote on allowing neon signs was 7-6 in favour.
Coun. Leanne Caron had suggested a 21-day period, but that amendment was rejected.
A business can get a permit for a mobile sign up to four times a year. The distance between mobile signs and feather signs has to be 50 metres on the same property.
“Please, please, please. Thirty days, four times per year,” pleaded delegate Shawn Jones, owner of Guelph Signs. “Mobile signs are a key component to the success of many businesses in Guelph.”
Ian Cottingham of Magnetsigns felt mobile signs were being unfairly targeted by a small group of people that don’t like them.
But Ian Brown said the issue is “mobile sign pollution.”
“The current sign bylaw never protected the attractiveness of this city,” Brown said.
The recommended bylaw updates follow more than two years of consultation with businesses, property owners, sign companies, builders, realtors and the public, as well as council direction on draft recommendations originally presented in October.
