Land Use Bylaw amendments streamline A-board advertising

Cold Lake City Council passed amendments to its Land Use Bylaw that streamline the rules for advertising on public and private property using A-board signs.

There will be no cost or permit required, provided that the provisions of the Land Use Bylaw governing their placement are followed.

“These signs are often used by not-for-profits, sports organizations and local businesses to get the word out about events, products and services,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “We get a lot of the requests from all sorts of organizations wanting to use the public spaces for advertising and while we wanted to have some rules governing their use, we also wanted to make them more user friendly and accessible to everyone.”

The bylaw amendments do not allow for the signs to be placed on arterial roadways, center medians, traffic circles or any islands or medians separating traffic. This is to ensure that signs do not become a public danger on busy roadways, or that the act of setting them up require unlawful or unsafe access.

“The City does field complaints in regards to vehicles driving on and off the medians in order to set up advertising,” Copeland said. “The amendments to the bylaw will now open things up for pretty much all organizations, but with a few rules on placement.”

A-board signs may be placed on public boulevards if they comply with the following regulations:

• The sign does not impede pedestrian traffic.
• They are placed for a maximum of three days prior to the event being advertised and are removed within 24 hours of the event ending.
• They are not located within 15 metres of an intersection on a local or collector roadway, or within 30 metres of an intersection on an arterial roadway.
• A maximum of five signs may be placed per event.
• Signs must be separated by at least 100 metres where the speed limit is 60km/h or less, or 150 metres where the speed limit is greater than 60 km/h.
• The sign must be weighted with at least two sandbags.

Any sign that will be placed for more than seven days will require a development permit and signs can be a maximum of one metre tall.

Businesses or events may also place A-board signs to advertise on public sidewalks, without a permit, provided the following regulations are met:

• They are placed on the sidewalk directly adjacent to the business or event being advertised.
• They are placed only for the business or event hours, and are removed when those hours are not in effect.
• No more than one sign is placed per business per 15 meters of frontage. Businesses on corner lots may place one sign on each of the sidewalks that abut the business.

“It’s important that we allow our local groups and business to advertise, but we also need them to take care in where and how they place their signs, especially on public property and especially near traffic,” Copeland said.

The City of Cold Lake’s Land Use Bylaw, and other bylaws, can be found online at www.coldlake.com/bylaws.