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Garden City, ID, Chamber Meeting w/ Mayor John Evans re: Sign Code Draft

March 20, 2009 at 5:56 am · Filed under Electronic Message Center, general, Illumination, LED, Monument Sign and tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Tonight’s meeting started with Leslie Yoest, the Garden City Chamber of Commerce President, stating that the purpose of the meeting was to make a list of items in the proposed sign code that were the most important to business owners to present to the City Council on Monday evening, March 23, 5:00 pm meeting at Garden City Hall. It is nice to see the Chamber of Commerce be pro-active with business owners in the community.  The chamber acted quickly to put the meeting together in order to affect the outcome of the business-killing,  re-vamped sign ordinance.

Garden City Mayor, John Evans, gave a brief statement, citing that he is not at the forefront of the change in the sign ordinance. His take on it is that the City Council has brought this about and is pushing for the change.  The Mayor mentioned  several major points in the ordinance draft that he thought needed work and input from the Garden City business owners. He also suggested that it was very conceivable that the thirty, or so, business owners that were present at this meeting could collectively make a difference in the outcome of the proposed changes to the sign ordinance.

The Mayor stressed that there is no deadline in place for the vote and that he is very supportive of keeping businesses in Garden City in an advantageous position with regard to being able to advertise their location. He does not want Garden City businesses to loose their competitive edge to neighboring cities or businesses that have much larger signs. The Mayor is very aware that under the proposed new sign code, businesses in Garden city may be at a disadvantage with the number if signs allowed and the size of the signs.

The group of business owners and sign company representatives broke out into three groups after the Mayor spoke, with a Chamber representative within each group. The discussion went around the table, with each business owner speaking about their individual concerns with the new sign code draft. Electronic Message Centers (EMC’s) had been previously stricken from the types of signs allowed in the city. It is safe to say that Garden City business owners want to see them back. The proposed maximum size of size of  letters on wall signs, maximum height of free-standing signs, and having to turm off illuminated signs after business hours in certain proposed zones were also topics of great concern.

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UPDATE on Garden City, ID Sign Ordinance Draft and Tonight’s Meeting Info

March 19, 2009 at 7:55 pm · Filed under Electronic Message Center, general, Illumination, LED, Monument Sign and tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Last night at the Garden City Design Review Committee meeting, myself and another sign company were present along with Dr. Todd Walker, D.D.S. of River City Dental and Rob Powell,  architect from Dave Evans Construction. (Need more business owners to attend meetings and speak out!) Although the meeting was a “workshop” forum  and not a “public” forum, the committee did allow all those that wished to speak, to do so briefly. Later the committee thanked all those that spoke and said it was very helpful. (Encouraging)

One very important item in the proposed draft that I needed clarification on and got last night after the meeting is that each business will be ALLOWED ONE SIGN ONLY; a monument sign or a wall sign, not both. The way that it is worded in the draft is confusing and other language on a different page is contradictory. I don’t think that many people have picked up on this. There was no discussion about this portion of the code by anyone present. This is a very big deal and a very drastic cut of the current allowance. Can you imagine telling Walmart that they can have only one sign? Or how about Fred Meyer?

When this ordinance passes, all signs that do not fit into the new allowances will become “legal non-conforming signs” and as the draft is written currently, every legal non-conforming sign will require a YEARLY PERMIT. By the city planners own admission, there would be hundreds of signs that would fall into this category. All legal non-conforming signs would have to be removed within twenty years (the depreciation schedule of the IRS.) The Design Review Committee felt that his was a little harsh. Some members suggested that the permit be good for five years and that the legal non-conforming signs be removed when the property use is changing or being redeveloped.

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