Press releases published by Projet Montréal

The councilors of Plateau-Mont-Royal will vote this evening for a resolution that will ultimately make the borough a billboard-free zone. "We want a city built on a human scale and this decision will allow us to improve our citizens' quality of life without having a significant impact on the City's revenue," said Luc Ferrandez, mayor of Plateau-Mont-Royal. The 45 giant billboards on the Plateau bring in just $40,000 in municipal taxes.

"Each billboard brings in less than $1,000 in taxes. That's peanuts compared to the the impact they have on our daily lives and compared to the profits that the billboard companies make off them," said Alex Norris, councilor for the district of Mile End and the elected official behind the initiative. "The main beneficiaries of this advertising are a handful of powerful companies. The losers are the citizens exposed to theirs ugliness day after day after day. It's a very bad deal for Montrealers."

Once the by-law is adopted, the 45 billboards will have to be dismantled, at the expense of their owners, within 12 months - likely no later than November 2011.

"We have always wanted to reduce visual pollution; it's an undertaking which we have assumed and which we will achieve," said Richard Bergeron, councilor for the district of Jeanne-Mance and leader of the 2nd opposition. 'If we want to beautify our city we must get rid of the eyesores around us and billboards are among them."

The elimination of the billboards will allow for the reduction of visual annoyances related to their size, their illumination and their interuption of the urban landscape. "With this decision we will improve the entrances to and exits from our borough," Mr. Bergeron added.

Commercial billboards have been banned for years in Vermont, Maine, Hawaii and Alaska. Among cities, Brazil's Sao Paulo, the seventh largest city in the world and the commercial capital of South America, has taken the same step.

The benefits of eliminating billboards are numerous: the enhancement of the natural and archtitectural heritage, the maintenance of the rhythm of the urban landscape, and the re-establishing of the prestige of certain Montreal thoroughfares, such as Parc and Papineau.

The Loi sur l'aménagement et l'urbanisme (law on planning and urbanism) allows cities and boroughs to eliminate billboards. "Our research however indicates that no Canadian city and no Montreal borough has yet taken such a step. I challenge them today to follow our lead," said Alex Norris.