A new electronic sign will be coming to downtown Bradford.
The sign will be the second of its kind, similar to the one at the east entrance of town on the side of the 121 Bridge Street building.
The town recently received an application from Mitchell Polakow to install a third-party electronic wall sign on the east side of the building at 38 Holland Street East.
A third-party sign promotes goods and services not available at the proposed location, but the current by-law only allows for first-party signs that promote goods and services available at the lot, building or structure where the sign is located.
The sign would be a 100 percent electronic display facing Holland St. East. Under the current by-law, an electronic copy sign can't exceed 50 percent of the permitted sign area.
Polakow has submitted relief from the by-law to allow for his sign to be installed, with a letter justifying his request.
He says the wall sign will promote local businesses and enhance the aesthetics of the surrounding buildings. The sign would have rolling durations of five to eight-second ads, which would transition smoothly as to not be distracting. To minimize contrast, he says the sign will never contain any moving images and will be dim at night time. The heightened elevation, distance from the road and from intersections ensures there are no unreasonable distractions.
He noted a similar by-law variance was granted to the 100 percent electronic wall sign at 121 Bridge Street last year.
Upon further review, staff recommended council approve the requested variance of the sign by-law to permit the installation of the third-party sign with 100 percent electronic static copy.
With the new sign, the town can expect to receive an additional $1,078 in revenue for the $178 sign license fee, $100 building permit fee, and $800 sign variance fee.
In Tuesday night's meeting of BWG Council, Coun. Peter Ferragine shared some of his concerns with the sign and asked if there are any limits as to how many electronic signs are permitted in town.
"I don't want it looking like Times Square," he commented.
The town's Director of Engineering Peter Loukes replied that currently there is no limit to how many signs are allowed, but noted staff will be reviewing the current sign by-law which hasn't been updated since 2011.
"We probably need to have some restrictions on these signs in terms of illumination," said Loukes.
"At this point in time this report stands on its own, this application should be fine but it is something we want to look at," he said.
Deputy Mayor James Leduc said he is looking forward to the sign by-law review.
"This is coming, technology moving forward," he said.
Council approved the requested variance to permit the installation of the sign.
