Electronic advertising billboards will not be coming to Coquitlam anytime soon.
Council voted down a staff recommendation last week outlining design guidelines for the signage, which would have been permitted in certain parts of the city and along Highway 1.
“I was opposed to this when it first came to us, I was opposed to this the next time it came to us and I was opposed to it in the last iteration,” said Mayor Richard Stewart. “I don’t believe our community is better with large electronic billboards and I won’t be supporting this.”
Because council voted down the design guidelines, a bylaw allowing electronic billboards, which is already at third reading, is expected to be abandoned.
Coun. Trish Mandewo said she was initially supportive of the concept when she thought the city would be able to generate revenue from the signs. But a staff report noted the city would be limited in how much it could leverage from applicants if the signs were located on private property.
“On private land, we are pretty much at the mercy of the applicant, so I am quite conflicted now,” Mandewo said before voting against the design guidelines.
Not everyone at the council table was opposed to the staff recommendations.
Coun. Dennis Marsden said he supported the concept because it would give the city the opportunity to use the signs to engage with residents. He added that council still would have control over which billboards were approved through the development permit process. Still, he acknowledged that some signs are better than others from a design standpoint.
“Some are acceptable and some aren’t,” he said. “There’s a behemoth in New Westminster that I think is awful from a look perspective… I also find the ones through Port Coquitlam to be quite tasteful.”
This is the second time in the last decade that the city has considered billboard advertising after council failed to approve a similar bylaw in 2013.
The most recent attempt to allow electronic billboards came up last fall after staff was approached by advertising companies seeking permission to operate in the municipality.
A public online survey conducted by the city in September drew 1,159 responses, with 73% opposed, 14% in favour and 13% undecided. Visual clutter was the biggest concern.
The results ran counter to a similar survey held by Van Horne Outdoor, an advertising company run by CP Rail, which found in a telephone survey of 300 Coquitlam residents that 12% said the signs were a bad idea, 32% a good idea and 40% said it would depend on the details such as location and message content.
