Community Engagement
City of Richmond Sign Bylaw No. 5560 Update
The City of Richmond is currently updating its Sign Bylaw No. 5560. This update provides an opportunity to address signs in a manner consistent with the City’s social vision for shaping an inclusive, engaged, and caring community to support community harmony. In addition, the update helps to realize the City to be the most appealing, livable and well-managed community in Canada.
Sign Bylaw Update–Objectives:
- To fully update the Sign Bylaw to a modern standard and ensure that it reflects the current and anticipated needs of the City, can effectively regulate the type of signs being experienced, considers legislative authority and legal requirements.
- To improve the content, structure, and format of the Sign Bylaw to increase its effectiveness, user friendliness, clarity, and ease of interpretation by the public, developers and City staff.
- Efforts to de-clutter will be strengthened and embedded in the Bylaw.
- Address deficiencies in the definition section; accommodate trends in sign technology and respond to business needs (e.g. electronic signs, multi-faceted free standing signs, etc.); additional types of signs to be regulated; correct errors and omissions.
Below is a summary of steps the City has taken to update sign regulations and a project timeline:
Richmond Sign Bylaw Consultation November 29 – December 11, 2016
Thank you to everyone who participated in the consultation process. The feedback received through this process will be analyzed and incorporated into the draft regulations proposed for the updated Sign Bylaw for Council consideration by spring 2017.
Language on Signage
Current Outreach and Engagement Efforts
The City of Richmond has launched a multi-pronged outreach and education campaign to explore the issue of language on signs in the context of community harmony. The campaign responds to a referral from Council last year (October 27, 2014), which directed staff to study the issue of language on signs, undertake public and stakeholder consultation and develop recommendations for possible future regulatory, education or other measures.
A report providing an update on signage and community harmony was presented to Richmond City Council on May 25, 2015. At that meeting, Council approved an update to Sign Bylaw No. 5560, which will include a de-cluttering regulation without a language provision.
Outreach and engagement initiatives will continue. These include:
Community Workshop
Thank you to everyone who participated in the City hosted community workshop on March 12, 2015 to explore the language on signage issue in the context of community harmony. We were pleased to see so many of you in attendance.
Press the play button and then the square button in the bottom, right-hand corner to watch the video in full screen HD.
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The materials presented at the workshop are provided below:
- Signage and community harmony in Richmond workshop agenda
- Richmond Intercultural Advisory Committee presentation
- City of Richmond presentation: The role of the City in addressing the signage issue
- UBC presentation: Living well with diversity: Learning from other cities that have faced conflicts over signage
- Photo 1: Ideas board
- Photo 2: Artist rendition of workshop discussion
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Sign Inspections
- A pilot project deploying multilingual temporary staff to conduct site visits to businesses in the City Centre to promote community harmony by encouraging the inclusion of English on signage and advertisement. Multilingual staff are visiting every business in the City Centre on a zone-by-zone basis to inform them about sign bylaw requirements and discuss the issue of language on signs. The City’s Community Bylaws staff are referring unilingual signs and third party signs to the sign inspectors for follow-up. The intent of the outreach project is to achieve compliance and promote community harmony with education rather than taking a strictly regulatory approach.
- Notifying all businesses in Richmond through the Business License renewal process year round to ensure that businesses have proper sign permits and to encourage inclusion of 50% English content on signs. A special insert in both English and Chinese with contact information has been produced for this purpose to ensure that language is not a barrier to the message. This approach will ensure that all licensed businesses in Richmond will have received a friendly written notice within one year.
- Consulting with various community partners, including the Richmond Intercultural Advisory Committee, Richmond Chamber of Commerce, BC Signs Association and individual sign companies, Canadian Race Relations Council, Laurier Institution, Richmond Chinese Community Society, Chinese Federation of Commerce of Canada and the Chinese Real Estate Professionals Association of BC to gather feedback on the issue and to encourage the inclusion of English on signage and publications through education efforts. These organizations favour education over enforcement to promote community harmony and eager to be part of the outreach and public consultation.
- Connecting with 79 sign companies in writing throughout the region as well as their provincial and national organization to inform them of Council’s direction to encourage the inclusion of 50% English content in future sign applications.
- Meeting with local property management companies to explain the purpose of the outreach program and to provide information/support to assist in their communication with the business operators.
- Preparing education material for distribution, in consultation with the City’s Economic Development staff, to highlight the steps and requirements to start a small business in Richmond and promote community harmony. This material will be translated into Chinese.
Business in Richmond - English Business in Richmond - Chinese Traditional Business in Richmond - Chinese Simplified- Engaging UBC faculty members with speciality in community harmony/social cohesion to conduct a scan and analysis of how other communities are dealing with the issue of language on signs and how they promote community harmony.
At the October 27, 2014 Council meeting, Council made several referrals related to the language on signs issue, which include:
- as a priority, staff consult with the sign owners to encourage more use of the English language on their sign;
- staff engage in a broad public consultation on the language on signs issue;
- the language on signs issue be referred to the Intercultural Advisory Committee, the Richmond Chamber of Commerce, the Richmond Chinese Community Society, and other appropriate business associations for comment;
- staff compile relevant information on the effect of the sign issue on community harmony that would be necessary to support adoption of a bylaw regulating language on signs should that option be considered in the future; and
- staff report back to Council within 6 months on the effectiveness of the measures identified in recommendations 1, 2, and 3 for Council to determine if a bylaw needs to be considered.
The minutes for this Council meeting can be accessed on the City’s website:
October 27, 2014 - Minutes
Strategic Plan and Work Program The Strategy functions like the social equivalent of the Official Community Plan and will guide the City’s decisions and resource allocations on social matters for the next ten (10) years. This over-arching strategy aids in identifying key social development issues facing Richmond, priority setting, pursuing senior government funding, eliciting support from other partners and being responsive to the social needs of Richmond residents.
Strategic Direction 5: Build on Richmond’s Cultural Diversity, Goal 2: Engaging Our Citizens and actions specific to facilitating a socially healthy and inclusive community can be found on page 43. The view the complete Strategy follow the link below:
Social Development Strategy