| 2/4/2010 6:07:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Old signs, new signs, everywhere a sign
Maplewood council retooling city's sign ordinance
Derrick Knutson
Review staff
Maplewood's sign ordinance hasn't been completely updated since 1977, and it still wasn't after the City Council members approved some changes to it at their Jan 25 meeting.
The council passed updates to most of the sign ordinance, aside from two areas that it said needed to be reviewed by the city's Business and Economic Development Commission.
The council voted 4-1 to ratify much of the revised ordinance, with Mayor Will Rossbach and council members James Llanas and Julie Wasiluk and John Nephew voting in favor. Council member Kathy Juenemann dissented.
Juenemann said at the meeting that she didn't vote to approve the updates because of a prior amendment to the motion made by Nephew that she also voted against.
Nephew's amendment was to pull the temporary window sign and banner portion of the ordinance for further review by the BEDC.
That amendment was accepted by the council by the 4-1 vote, with the council members voting the same as they did on the final motion.
Over an hour of debate took place before the council got around to voting on the issue.
Environmental Planner Shann Finwall said at the meeting that the goal is to update the city's sign code in order to make it more understandable from a layman's perspective.
The effort stretches back to 2000, when the city's Community Design and Review Board spent parts of the next four years on the task of revising the sign ordinance. It did not recommend the approval of a revised sign ordinance until March 2006. However, no action was taken on the sign ordinance until June of 2009, and even then the first reading of the ordinance didn't take place until November.
Finwall said there were multiple areas of the code that needed to be addressed and updated, including the portion of the code that the city receives the most complaints about: offsite directional signs, such as the ones real-estate agents use that advertise where to go to get to an open house.
She explained that a complaint from a resident about the signs prompted the CDRB and city staff to look at that portion of the ordinance, and there were some changes that needed to be made.
She said it was determined by the CDRB that the ordinance would be easier to enforce if the city required contact information for the sign owner on any signage, and the date the sign was placed in an area.
Finwall said sign-making companies often construct them for various businesses, and the city would be making a concerted effort to inform those companies about the ordinance so they could either take the signs down if they were in violation of the ordinance, or renew permits to keep the signs legal.
Companies move, but signs still glow
During the discussion, council members brought up some of their concerns about signs in the city.
Juenemann said the city should find a way to address signs that remain in place after businesses fail or relocate.
"When businesses leave and the building is vacant, especially with the electric signs that are still lit up, it's really confusing to people. They think they're going to find something there, then they drive in and it's not there," she said.
In particular, Juenemann mentioned the former Ritz Camera store off of County Road D.
"It was lit, then it was dark, now it's lit again," she said.
Llanas wanted to know how city staff enforces the ordinance when signs are not in compliance.
"If a sign has been installed and has been there for too long, we would contact that business owner and work with them to obtain a permit and make sure it is removed in that timeframe," Finwall responded to Llanas's query.
"If it is not removed, we have several different ways of regulating this. I found that one of the best ways is to go and determine who the sign installer is and actually contact them indicating to them that this permit for 30 days has expired, (and ask them to) please come and remove the sign. They usually indicate to me that they had no idea there was a time limit on it."
Former mayor among critics
Two members of the public had general information questions about the ordinance, but others, including former Maplewood mayor Diana Longrie, had some harsh criticisms for the council.
"I do not rely upon signage for my business, but many of the business owners, small-business owners I know in Maplewood, do rely very heavily on being able to have the kind of signage they need," said Longrie, an attorney in private practice.
She suggested that reducing the amount of signs a company is allowed to have could adversely affect the business community in Maplewood.
She was particularly concerned about window signs before the council pulled the issue for later discussion. Maplewood's current ordinance allows for up to 75 percent of a business' windows to be covered by signage, and the council was considering reducing that to 50 percent.
Longrie asserted she was representing numerous business owners who were "fearful of retaliation" if they came to the meeting, because city officials might come out to their businesses to see if they were in compliance with the sign ordinance.
She also questioned why nonprofits in Maplewood were allowed to have directional signs in road right-of-ways, and why for-profit businesses were not allowed to.
"What is the case law upon which you base that decision?" she said multiple times during her presentation.
Finwall said in a phone interview that under the retooled ordinance, nonprofits could apply for a permit to have directional signs in the right-of-way. She explained the nonprofit could have up to three signs up to 4 square feet in size apiece. In addition to the city approving the permit, she said Ramsey County would have to approve it in some cases because some thoroughfares are county-owned.
Is new ordinance too tough?
Resident John Wykoff, who owns his own commercial sign manufacturing business, also took the podium to address the updates.
"I've been in business for a long time in the sign business and there's an old saying that goes around," he said. "It says, 'A business with no sign is a sign of no business.'"
He urged the council to stay with the old ordinance because he said a sign code that was too restrictive could have a negative impact on business and possibly put him out of business.
Juenemann was of a different opinion than Wykoff on the updates.
"I just don't see this as so horribly restrictive that it can't be worked with," she said.
Once the city's Business and Economic Development Commission has reviewed the window sign and banner portion of the ordinance, it will be brought before the council again for consideration. The council did not establish a date for that review at the meeting.
|
Article Comment Submission Form
|
