What started as a joke became reality when a plane towing a banner that read “U+2 Survey Out Check Your Mail” flew around Colorado State University for half an hour on Sept. 18.

The banner referred to a survey sent out in the mail the week of Sept. 10 to residents in Fort Collins about their thoughts on U+2, the city law preventing more than three unrelated persons to live under the same roof.

The idea for the plane came when Associated Students of Colorado State University President Tristan Syron sent an email to Director of Marketing Strategy Blake Alfred.

In the email were some of Syron’s ideas for how to get the word out for the survey so students would take it. He finished the email by jokingly saying they should hire a plane.

Alfred responded with a list of possible places to rent from and their prices, “(Syron) immediately called to tell me it was a joke,” Alfred said.

But, after seeing the quoted prices that Alfred sent, Syron decided to buy flight time from Drag ‘n’ Fly Banners in Douglas County.

In total, ASCSU spent $2,700 on the banner and two flights around Fort Collins this week.

The first flight was scheduled Sept. 18 because of the number of people on campus.

“We debated between (Monday and Tuesday),” Syron said. “But if you look at the people through the Plaza on Tuesday, it’s slightly higher. We looked at some analytics that said Tuesday’s gonna be the best day to get the most amount of people aware that that’s happening.”

ASCSU has been working to replace U+2 with a variation called Me+3 for at least three years now, since the Sydoriak administration.

Last year’s Senate allocated around $30,000 for this year’s administration to make more headway on the change.

The plane and banner will be back Sept 22. during the on-campus tailgate, also held by ASCSU.

Stuart Smith can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @stuartsmithnews