Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 2015-04-08TOWN OF ITHACA CODES AND ORDINANCES COMMITTEE Meeting of April 8, 2015 6:30 p.m. - 8:40 p.m. Minutes Present: Bill Goodman, Chair; Eric Levine, Pat Leary, Bill King, Fred Wilcox; Eva Hoffmann; Bruce Bates, Director of Code Enforcement; Susan Ritter, Director of Planning, Chris Balestra, Planner; Susan Brock, Attorney for the Town and Paulette Terwilliger, Town Clerk. 1. Member comments/concerns. Bill G. announced that Fred will be resigning from the Codes and Ordinances Committee effective immediately. Fred has been on the committee for many years and Bill G. expressed the committee's appreciation for his service. Bill G. reported that since the last meeting he, Sue, Susan and Chris met to discuss outstanding questions regarding the Sign Law. The committee still needs to resolve the exempt signs and murals and a similar issue, 3-D sign symbols, as well as the agricultural signs options and Susan's emailed comments. 2. Approval of March 11, 2015 COC minutes. Minor changes made. Pat moved adoption of the minutes as amended, seconded by Fred. Unanimous. 3. Review & Discuss New Redlined Revision to the 12-10-14 Updated Sign Law Containing All Modifications to Date, titled "04-08-15 Working Copy" Bill G. stated that the committee would go through the highlighted areas on the working copy that require additional review and decisions. Susan commented that she has some wording changes and that she'd provide those to staff separately. Page 3, §221-5 Exempt signs: The committee previously decided to add a "C" to this section that would exempt signs up to 6s.f. in area in all Residential (R), Conservation (C) and Office Park Commercial (OPC) zones, as long as the signs were 100-feet from a public right-of-way and the lot line of any adjacent landowner. Chris had handouts to illustrate some concerns that staff had; mainly that exempting these signs might lead to visual clutter if the law didn't include a limit to the number of 6s.f. signs someone could place on their property outside of the setback. The handouts were aerial photos showing the different zones with pink highlight depicting a 100-foot setback and blue depicting a 150-foot setback. Chris noted that the two OPC-zoned areas (hospital and South Hill Business Campus area) wouldn't pose much of a problem, but that there were many residentially -zoned parts of the town with open views that would provide opportunities for someone to take advantage of their road frontage to put up as many 6s.f signs as they pleased. She referred to the aerial that showed the residential zones along Trumansburg Rd as an example and noted that there were similar properties scattered around town. Going by what the committee decided, someone who wanted to make a statement could put up twenty (thirty, forty, etc.) 6s.f. signs outside of the 100-foot setback from the right-of- way. But, according to the rest of the law, within that 100-foot setback, that same person could only put up an aggregate of 16s.f. or 24s.f. of signage (R zone versus C zone, respectively). To summarize, a person in a residential zone would be allowed 16s.f. of signage within a 100-feet setback, but beginning at the 101-foot setback mark, they could have as much aggregate signage as desired, as long as each sign wasn't larger than 6s.f. in area. Discussion followed. Bill G. reiterated that the reason for exempting these signs was to reduce or stop wasting staff and board review time for signs such as the "no smoking" signs at the hospital or the banners at Ithaca College, who both had to come in for variances. If signs couldn't be seen from the road, then we shouldn't regulate them. Chris noted that staff generally agreed with the committee's position, but that the committee needed to consider unintended consequences of their proposed exemptions. She relayed that planning staff recommended that the committee consider extending the setback from 100 to 150-feet and putting some sort of limit on the number of 6s.f. signs that people could place on their property. To provide the committee with a visual representation of their decision, Bruce showed them what a 6s.f. sign looked like from approximately 100-feet away. Based on this and additional discussion, the committee decided to extend the setback to 150-feet from the right-of-way and the lot line of an adjoining property. The committee also added a height limit for the signage, not to exceed 6-feet in height. Page 3, §221-5 Exemptsigns - discussion on murals and 3D signs Bill G. reiterated that he met with Susan, Sue, and Chris to discuss 3D signs and murals. For murals, the group explored their ideas of what constituted a mural. Would a mural of a vineyard, with wine bottles and grapes, painted on the side of a vineyard be considered a sign? What if McDonald's wanted to paint a mural of a hamburger and fries on the side of their building - would that be art or advertising? What if a farmer allowed the Nike swoosh symbol to be painted on the side of his barn, located 5 miles on the same road as from a Nike outlet store? The committee went into a long discussion about whether to regulate murals, and how to regulate them if we choose to regulate them. Eva noted that if logos were allowed, then they might as well be a billboard, since the side of a barn is a large area that would be advertising a product. Susan thought there were two options: the town could allow murals if there were no words on them or the town could allow them if they do not depict any kind of product, business or service offered on the premises. She added that she found a law review article on the subject and that there were also several conflicting circuit court decisions. She'd need to research the topic more thoroughly. The committee did not want to discourage artwork like a vista on the side of a barn, but also did not want to encourage corporate logos. Susan asked how many murals had been proposed at the town. Staff responded that there had really only been one mural proposed in the town since the Sign Law was enacted; and that was for a vineyard picture on the side of the Six Mile Creek winery barn. In that case, Susan recommended that the law not address murals at all, but Bill G. did not want the codes department to later interpret them as signs. Pat added that this was why she wanted to redefine the term "sign" to make it narrower, like "a device for visual communication containing words, corporate logos or similar graphics, publicly displayed to identify, advertise or convey information." The committee then digressed into a discussion about the definition of a sign. Most of the committee felt that the proposed definition would allow the winery mural, but some thought the grapes would be "similar graphics" because the winery sells wine and wine was made from grapes. Bill G noted that the term mural should probably be defined separately from the term sign and reiterated that the committee seemed to be in support of exempting murals if there weren't any words or corporate logos. The definition of mural should adequately distinguish art from advertising. Staff will look into this and provide something for the committee to consider at the next meeting. 2 The discussion then turned to 3D signs and what those could consist of, including a sculpture of a cow in front of a steak house, a chili pepper sculpture on the top of a Chili's restaurant, a barber pole, a 3D tooth on a projecting sign of a dentist office and other types of 3D signs attached to buildings. Like the mural discussion, the committee questioned which would be art and which was advertising. Fred stated that it didn't matter if, for example, a coffee cup was painted on the side of a building or if there was a 3D coffee cup hanging from the building. Both would be conveying the same information - one wouldn't need words to know that a coffee shop is there. What differentiates painting/hanging sign from art is whether that product or service is offered at the location. This brought on a discussion about the types of sculptures people have in their yards. Some committee members considered sculptures and 3D signs fun and unique ways to convey information. Bill G. canvassed the committee and determined that they would be ok with smaller 3D signs attached to a building, such as a barber pole or tooth, but not freestanding out front. Susan suggested regulating them as projecting signs and limiting the size by computing the total area which would be added into the aggregate square footage allowed. Bill G. was not in favor of adding this to the aggregate allowed. Chris quoted from the sign computation process we have in the law. She will look back for the volume definition that she had previously researched. Bill K. added that any computer could calculate the surface area of a sign into square footage and that most sign designers could easily figure out the volume of a 3D sign. Bill G. asked staff to look at how other communities handle measuring 3D signs. Off premises signs and agricultural businesses: Bill G. reported what he learned from the town's agricultural community as to what they'd like to see provided for agricultural businesses. The committee had been struggling with a way to allow signage for agricultural endeavors but could not find a way around the content -neutrality issue. Bill G didn't think there was a way to legally give the agricultural community what they really wanted, so he had no additional language recommendations to accommodate off -premise agriculture signs. Chris noted that New York State had a sign program for state roads and that Tompkins County recently implemented a similar way -finding program for county roads that the farmers would be able to use. They would be able to have official signs placed within NYS and County road rights -of - way as part of the programs, which would help provide exposure about their farm activities. Other changes to the law: Pg. 1, §221-2 - delete "traffic" underlined in red in first sentence. Pg. 5, §221-8.E.3 - last line, add "and from the lot line of any adjoining owner" between way and shall. Pg. 5, §221-8.F.3 - add "above the walking surface" at the end of the sentence and make the changes to all other same wall sign descriptions for the other zones. Pg. 5, §221-8.G.2 - same as above for wall signs. Make same changes in other zones. Pg. 11, §221-15 Design Review - Fred believed that having the Planning Board determine colors would be too subjective. Committee agreed that color shouldn't be in the Design Review Criteria. The committee will discuss murals and 3D signs, along with removal provisions at the next meeting. 4. Other Business. Next meeting date tentatively scheduled for May 13, 2015. 3