At its meeting on Dec. 15, Airdrie City council voted unanimously to approve a recommendation by staff from the City’s Planning Department to cut the fees businesses pay to have temporary signage from $125 to $65 for each 30-day period.
Laurie Legault, owner of Goldworks Jewellers, came to the council meeting on Nov. 17 to question why the fees had increased from $40 per 30-day period in 2013 to $125 per 30-day period in 2014, a 313 per cent increase.
At the Nov. 17 meeting, council directed staff to re-visit the rationale for the increase and bring a recommendation forward to the Dec. 15 meeting.
Legault said the drop in fees was very good news for her business.
“(It’s) much more reasonable. It’s fantastic. I mean, a 300 per cent increase was outrageous,” Legault said.
Planning Technician Suzanne Faber presented the recommendation to council.
According to Faber, the increase in the fees, which took effect on Jan. 1, 2014, was made to reduce the cost for short-term signage and discourage long-term signage.
Under the 2014 fee structure, a temporary sign erected for less than seven days incurred a fee of $30, a sign in place for more than seven but less than 30 days incurred a fee of $125 and a permit for a temporary sign for more than 30 days but less than 90 days required a fee of $250 be paid. Prior to 2014, temporary signage was limited to a 30-day period for a $40 fee.
“We did have some feedback regarding (the increased fees) and that’s when we started taking a look at it, but I don’t think it was until the person came to council that we were directed to really take action on it,” Faber said.
According to Faber, 263 temporary sign permits were issued in 2013, while 122 were issued in 2014. Faber said she believes the increase in fees was directly responsible for the decline in the number of permits.
According to Faber, City planning staff is in the process of looking at ways to offer some different ways to approach the fees in the future.
“We’re looking at doing some further research so we can possibly offer a different tiered-type approach to portable signs, a lot of communities do that,” she said.
“There are some communities that do a yearly fee. For example, (a business) pays one fee and they’re allowed to do two months of advertising in that year. They can split that up however they want.”
The fee approved at the Dec. 15 council meeting of $65 per 30-day period is a $25 increase over the $40 fee that had been in place from 2005 to 2013. Faber said this additional money will be used to help offset administration costs.
