Green steel signs that violate Ottawa's sign bylaw can be posted in Hintonburg as part of a youth theatre project.

City council granted an exception Wednesday for the signs, which mark eight places in the neighbourhood that serve as backdrops for audio plays by teenage playwrights and provide a phone number to access the plays.

The "Uth Ink" project is intended for people to listen to the plays while immersed in the settings that the plays are about, including the Rosemount Library.

It is a partnership between the Playwrights Guild of Canada and [murmur], an oral history project that has produced works in Toronto and Vancouver tying stories to geographic locations.

However, its signs, which are intended to be up for three years, are considered posters under the city's sign bylaw. The bylaw requires that signs be made of paper and stay up for two weeks at most.