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3 Talking about fairness and equality is all well and good. Where are the standards? They are in the law, and their meaning needs to be defined. The conditions for variances are hardship, unique circumstances, and in the case of signs, and as implied in the other variance procedures, no special privilege is granted through the granting of the variance. These terms need to be defined. Hardship must mean hardship caused by the land, building, topography, location, or other circumstances applying to the property. The law is a land law, and it does not refer in any way to money, economics, business, developers, price per acre or other considerations. In essence the law says, "Regardless of money, the problem with this land is " This is the only objective criteria that can be applied. An economic criteria allows the council to grant special privilege to some, and keep others under the law. It allows the council to pick and choose on the basis of whether the council, or a particular councilman likes the applicants, has been influenced by the applicant, or likes his occupation. The economic criteria of hardship can't be considered because what is economic hardship? Who can determine it? With our changing business situations what is a hardship today may be a bonanza tomorrow, or vice versa. How much hardship is economic hardship? You can't draw the line with money. A few dollars, $50 dollars, $1000 dollars? Maybe $1000 is a hardship to one business man, and is a drop in the bucket to another. Who do you believe? Are there appraisers qualified to determine economic hardship? I doubt it. Declaring economic hardship for one and allowing him a variance may cause a hardship to another. What is the council to say to the applicants who says "Because Joe's variance allows him to put out a sign, and I'm not, he's got all my business. This is a hardship. Give me a variance. In contrast to these serious questions about economics, we can easily determine hardship in terms of acreage or square footage of wall space. We can measure this. All can agree as to whether a sign can be allowed in an area with X number of feet, and if no sign can be allowed on the building because of square footage requirements, then a hardship exists. Just from a practical standpoint, we can enforce the law with land or square footage requirements. We can't enforce the law with economics. But more importantly, land and square footage requirements ensure fairness to all. Another criteria required by the law, besides hardship is that unique circumstances must exist with the building or property. Unique means "being without a like or equal; very rare, unusual; one and only." The meaning is clear. We need not even consider the intent. The land must have a one and only hill, unlike any other hill in the city; the property must have a one and only ditch, or creek. Or, a building must have a one