HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOC Minutes 2017-01-11
TOWN OF ITHACA CODES AND ORDINANCES COMMITTEE
Meeting of January 11, 2017
Present: Bill Goodman, Pat Leary, Eric Levine, Eva Hoffmann, Bill King. Staff: Bruce Bates,
Director of Code Enforcement; Susan Ritter, Director of Planning; Chris Balestra, Planner; Deb
DeAugistine, Deputy Town Clerk; Susan Brock, Attorney for the Town (via Skype)
Absent: Yvonne Fogarty
1. Member comments/concerns
Mr. Goodman reported that the town board passed the solar law.
2. Approval of minutes of September 14, 2016
Ms. Brock said she had some comments regarding illuminated murals. Her notes say that we would
regulate illuminated murals by adding provisions that comply with the outdoor lighting law. She
doesn’t know that we did all the same provisions for murals that we did for signs, and she had a
note that we would not allow murals to be internally lit, and we do allow signs to be internally lit.
She also had a comment about projected outdoor lighting onto the side of houses – the minutes say
that the committee discussed it and decided that this type of lighting was not a mural or a sign and
that they should not be regulated. Her notes say that the committee really didn’t address that.
Mr. Goodman said he didn’t recall any discussions about that topic.
Ms. Balestra said that her notes agree with the minutes.
Ms. Brock said that it probably didn’t matter because the law is going to deal with it. She suggested
just leaving the notes as is.
Mr. Goodman agreed.
Moved by Pat; seconded by Eric. Unanimous
3. Draft Sign Law: Remaining discussion items and questions
Bill G. said that when we were getting ready refer the law back to the town board, Ms. Brock went
through the entire town code to look at references to the law. She found there are many references
to the sign law, so we have to make sure all the references are going to work. We found that in a lot
of the zones, signs are allowed only as an accessory structure or use. The question is: If there is no
principal use on the parcel, could the sign be a principal use?
Chris’s research led her to think it would be risky to allow signs as a principal use, because if you
have a vacant parcel in any of the zones, but especially in the residential and ag zones, as long as
you put a sign 150 feet back from the road, you can have as many 6-square-foot signs as you like.
That might cause some visual clutter if someone decided to put a whole bunch of signs on their
vacant lot. More importantly, in the commercial and industrial zones, if there’s a vacant lot in the
middle of, say East Hill Plaza, and the person who owns the parcel wants to advertise, since we can’t
regulate content, she thinks it could come a proliferation of business advertising.
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Eva said that most of the signs mentioned, such as neighborhood identification signs, public
information signs, Posted and No Trespassing signs, and historical markers might not be connected
to a particular lot, but they are related to the area, including the lot it sits on, even if it’s empty.
Political signs are related to an event and not necessarily related to any lot. There might be other
signs that aren’t related to the lot they’re on.
Pat said that political signs are not necessarily related to an event; they can be just an expression.
We can’t regulate content, so do we want, for example, hate speech signs? What’s the worst that can
happen if we allow signs as a principal use?
Susan pointed out that you run that risk, anyway, if you have the sign on the parcel their home is on.
Off-premise signs will not be allowed; that’s a content-based regulation, and the only one we’re
permitted with signs. She doesn’t know if it would be legal to say you can’t put any signs at all on
your vacant lot. You can’t even post it and say no trespassing?
Eva said a posted sign is related to the land it sits on.
Bill G. stated that what we’ve said in most of these zones is that signs are only allowed as an
accessory use, so if there’s no principal use on the lot, there can’t be an accessory use. Posted signs
are currently exempt, but will not be under the new law. We got away from exempt signs because
that’s a content regulation.
Chris said we probably couldn’t argue that posted signs on a farm could be an accessory to the farm,
or an accessory to someone’s timber business.
Bill G. said that if we allow them as a principle use, they’re still subject to the size regulations.
Chris was concerned that people could put up as many 6-square-foot signs as they want 150 feet
from the road in residential, conservation, and ag zones. But up at the road, if they want to put up a
political sign, they’re still subject to the size regulations. She said if we were to allow signs as
principal uses in the commercial zone, a vacant commercial parcel could have up to a 50-square-
foot sign, depending on the speed limit of the road it fronts.
Susan asked whether she’s preferring speech that identifies an enterprise over political speech.
That’s saying, this size is fine as long as it’s an enterprise, but it’s not fine if it’s any other speech.
Bill said that’s a commercial zone. Evan Monkemeyer already has signs at College Crossing. He
would assume that what you’d mostly get in a commercial zone is advertising for the business and
not political signs. He said he doesn’t have a problem with it.
Chris said the question is: should it be associated with a use or building that’s already on the
property or could it be the only thing on the vacant lot?
Pat said she’s only thinking in terms of provocative political signs. If we limit signs to accessory use,
at least there’s some accountability for that sign. It’s not a sign in the middle of nowhere; it’s next to
a building whose owner is identifiable, which might serve as a check on the more outrageous stuff,
and we’d still be within the court’s limitation on regulating content.
Bill G. said we would be treating people differently who have no building on their property than
people with a building. It’s discrimination based on their status as a building owner. It’s a different
type of discrimination than discriminating based on speech. He tends to be more of a First
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Amendment or free speech absolutist. If people want to say something, they should be able to say it.
He gave as an example the resident on the corner of Hanshaw and Warren who always had political
signs out in front of his house. Someone in Groton recently had some political speech signs on an
undeveloped corner and he had some problems. Bill thinks that if somebody wants to complain
about their local government, they should be free to do so, and he’s not going to say they have to
put it in front of their house.
Eva said that if she owned some empty land with no building on it, and made it available for people
who lived around there to hike and recreating, it would also be available to hunters during hunting
season, unless it was posted. In such a case, would she, as the owner of the land, have problems if
someone got hurt by an accidental shooting if she didn’t have the land posted?
Bruce said there are laws in New York State to protect landowners.
Susan said it’s covered under the General Obligations Law, but is not a bulletproof way of escaping
liability.
Eva said there is some risk of liability if the land is not posted.
Bill G. said he was in favor of allowing signs as a principal use. Committee members were in
agreement.
Bill G. said he and staff looked at all the PDZs that have been adopted and how they refer to the sign
law. Under our proposed draft, we’ve given different regulations for different zones, so we tried to
figure out which PDZs would fit into which type of zones, so in the language for each PDZ, we can
say they’re subject to the regulations of the corresponding zone. Most of them are in commercial or
office park commercial zones. Sterling house and EcoVillage are multiple residence.
Chris reported about a few additional changes staff was recommending in addition to the redlining
that was already approved by the committee:
270-254
D. For residential and conservation zones, we’re allowing an aggregate signage of 16 square feet,
but we’re adding an exception, shown in E.
E. We’re adding an exception that relates to the multiple residence zone because we found that the
multiple residence zones have special individual allotments. Right now in the MDR, they’re allowed
to have a 24-square-foot identification sign, and if we follow the new law, they will only be allowed
16.
270-256
There was a question as to whether we should consider exempting signs under 3 square feet in area
in industrial and commercial zones. Most of the political signs, Aids Right to Life signs, St. Catherine
rug signs sale, etc, are 3 square feet. If so, should they be lit, how tall should they be? She did not
have time to go around town and take pictures of directional signs and other signs typically found
in commercial districts that are small. We may want to exempt them instead of including them in
the overall aggregate that’s allowed.
Bill G. said in our current law, we exempt directional signs, but we don’t have that exempt sign
category in the new law for those types of signs.
Chris pointed out that that there is no aggregate for the commercial and industrial zones; they
would probably be considered free-standing signs, so they wouldn’t be allowed.
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Bill G. said we should allow those types of signs so people can get around the parking lots of
commercial businesses. That’s why we were thinking that those types of directional signs wouldn’t
be included in the aggregate amount.
Chris added that they wouldn’t be included in the numerical count either. You can have only one
free-standing sign on a commercial property if the business fronts on one road. Most businesses
aren’t going to want a directional sign as their only free-standing sign; they’re going to want that
sign to advertise the business. We’re not set on 3 square feet; we just need to figure out a
reasonable area. There’s no language change; we’re just researching it.
Bill K. said we can’t exempt those directional signs because that would be content-based.
Susan said that at our meeting of September 6th, we also talked about whether we would allow
them to be lit because in a commercial district. For example, it might be helpful for the signs to be lit
at night when people are trying to find the entrance to a hotel. The problem is, you can’t limit lit
signs to only directional signs, so now you’re allowing any small signs to be lit.
Bill K suggested that we could allow those signs, but put a limit on the number of them on a given
parcel. That wouldn’t be content-based.
Eva asked about 270-249(D). It says that pennants, valances, ribbons, etc, “shall not be part of an
exterior or window sign, or used for advertising or attracting attention when not part of a sign.”
Why does it say “when not part of a sign”? Does that mean it could be part of a sign?
Bill G. said he thinks it’s supposed to mean that it can’t be part of a sign and you can’t use it
separately to draw attention to your business. But the way it’s written, you could use ribbons and
other things if they were not part of a sign and you weren’t using them to try and attract attention.
The committee agreed that “when not part of a sign” should be deleted.
Eva asked about 270-254(B). It talks about self-illuminated signs, but self-illuminated doesn’t
appear in the definitions. In the definitions, an illuminated sign can be lit “internally or externally
by artificial light.”
Chris said a self-illuminated sign is illuminated internally. The term was part of the current sign
law, and the current sign definition includes self- illuminated. We tried to reduce the confusion
from the existing law. It might be clearer to change that from self-illuminated to internally-
illuminated.
Eva said she thinks of solar lights as being self-illuminated. There are probably going to be more
about those in the future.
Susan said we’ll have to look at all the instances of the term in the law and make sure there are no
unintended consequences of changing it.
Eva noted that 270-256 (3)(d) says that projecting signs “shall not extend above the level of the
floor of the second story of the building to which attached, nor in any case may the top of the sign
be higher than 12 feet from the ground.” The example, Johnny’s Big Red Grill, doesn’t conform to
the text. If it’s an illustration of what we need, it should conform.
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Chris said it’s difficult to find a projecting sign in the town, but that she will find one that’s in line
with what the law allows.
Bill K. asked why we’re limiting a projecting sign to the second story level. He can understand why
the top shouldn’t be more than 12 feet above ground. He said he would be fine just limiting it to a
height off the ground, and not say how it relates to the second floor of a building.
Chris said that it’s in the existing sign law and we never thought to change it.
Eva argued that depending on where a person comes from, the first floor might be the ground floor
or the next floor up. There are uses of the language that are different.
Committee members agreed that the reference to the story should be removed.
Eva pointed out that 270-256(5) says nothing about distance from the ground of awning, canopy,
and marquee signs. We don’t want people bumping their heads.
Committee members agreed that marquee, awning, and canopy signs should have the same height
clearance requirements as projecting signs.
Bill G. added that it should match the building code.
4. Meeting Schedule
Bill G. said he’s talked to staff about the possibility of the committee not meeting every month, but
only as needed. People are going to be busy with Maplewood, and we want to move ahead with a
working group to start looking at the new zoning. We would keep to the second Wednesday when
we meet.
Sue agreed that meeting on an as-needed basis would be a good idea since in 2017 there isn’t an
urgency associated with any of the projects like there was with the solar law.
Bill G: said a number of things the committee has talked about in the past will be related to the
rezoning. The working group will meet on a more regular, intensive basis to start drafting the new
zoning language. The last time rezoning was finished was in 2003, 10 years after the
comprehensive plan was completed. He doesn’t want to take that long again.
He suggested meeting quarterly and everyone agreed. If we have other reasons we need to meet
between those dates, we can schedule.
Eric suggested an earlier meeting time.
Committee members agreed that meetings should start at 6 p.m.
Next Meeting date: April 12 at 6 p.m.
The meeting adjourned at 7:50 p.m.
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