HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOC Minutes 2013-04-17
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CODES AND ORDINANCES COMMITTEE
MEETING MINUTES
April 17, 2013
MEMBERS PRESENT: Bill Goodman, Pat Leary, Eric Levine, Fred Wilcox, Eva Hoffmann
ABSENT: Bill King
OTHERS PRESENT: Susan Brock, Attorney for the Town; Susan Ritter, Director of Planning; Bruce
Bates, Director of Code Enforcement; Chris Balestra, Planner
Chair Bill Goodman called the meeting to order at 6:32 pm.
Agenda Item No. 1 - Member Comments/Concerns:
Chairman Goodman announced that the Town-sponsored “Appreciation Social Mixer” will be held May
2nd at the Ithaca Beer Tap Room from 4:00pm to 6:00pm.
Fred announced that he will have the honor of presenting the 2013 David Allee Award for Outstanding
Zoning Board Chair to Kirk Sigel on Monday, April 22nd at the NYPF Conference in Saratoga.
Agenda Item No. 2 – Approval of Minutes from March 20, 2013 meetings:
Eric moved and Pat seconded the motion to approve the minutes as amended, all in favor of the changes.
Agenda Item No. 3 – Continued Discussion of Town Draft Revised Sign Law – picking up with
Section 221-6 Temporary Signs (new blue-lined version, dated March 26, 2013): Continuing with the
proposed definition of the word “flag,” the Committee went back and forth regarding adding the word
“nation” to the definition that they agreed to last month. Susan B. indicated that she had a different
decision in her notes than what was reflected by the COC minutes. She remembered that everything after
the word “device” was deleted because it was not content neutral.
Discussion followed regarding the wording on the definition of a flag. The Committee went over the
definitions from other municipalities and discussed the purpose of regulating flags at all (minimizing
distraction and aesthetic impacts). After a bit more back and forth, Chairman Goodman decided to listen
to the March 20th COC meeting tape to clarify what the decision was. He will report back to the
Committee at their May meeting.
Temporary Signs (new section), page 4: Chris started out explaining that temporary signs were weaved
into the exempt section in the existing Sign Law, such that there were exempt signs per district, then
temporary signs, then more exempt signs. This arrangement has made it very confusing to the Code and
Planning staff throughout the years. To remedy the situation, staff created a separate “Temporary” Sign
section in the draft law that contained all of the temporary signs from the existing law as well as a few
new additions.
The Committee began the overall discussion with the definition of “temporary” in the existing and draft
law (draft law just carries over the definition). In particular, the Committee wondered how the 30-day
time limit would affect a sign that changed its content every 30 days…would it be considered a new sign
with another 30 day limit? What about political signs? What about construction signs? Would it be
reasonable to restrict construction signs to 30-days when construction was often happening for much
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longer? The Committee decided to think about this time limit a little more and recognized that the draft
law might need to be clearer on this.
The group then had a long conversation about political signs (item “H” in the draft law) and how long
they should be allowed to be up. One member clarified that there was a difference between political signs
and campaign signs and recommended limiting campaign signs. Susan B. pointed out that the existing
Sign Law treated political signs as permanent and exempt, not temporary, so the Committee should
consider teasing out campaign signs from political signs, with campaign signs being temporary.
Another member noticed that the other temporary signs on the list were required to be removed within 7
days after an event, sale, project completion, etc. To be consistent with the other items on the temporary
list, the Committee thought about adding a line in item “H,” so that it read something like “campaign
signs must be removed within 7 days after the election in question.” There was no official decision to do
this, though.
One member suggested adding a time limit for how long a campaign sign should be up before an election
- e.g. “campaign signs shall not be erected less than 30 days before an election and shall be removed
within 7 days after the election.” However, other Committee members did not support this idea. Susan
B. offered to research what the Town could legally do regarding political signs. She stated that her
findings might inform the Committee on what to do with the rest of the temporary sign section.
One Committee member wondered why temporary signs in commercial and industrial zones were
permitted to be larger than in residential zones. Staff surmised that it might be because signs were
generally permitted to be larger in those zones than in residential zones. The Committee then went into a
discussion about the content of construction signs, whether they could be considered advertisements
and/or commercial speech.
Chairman Goodman brought the Committee back to the beginning of the temporary list and the group
then went through each item on the list individually. The Committee tentatively decided on the
following:
• Delete text in the second paragraph so it reads “Temporary signs shall not obstruct or impair
vision or traffic in any manner or create a hazard.”
• “A” (directional signs) - keep as is, no change.
• “B” (land or building rental signs) - add “on each road frontage” in the second line, between the
word “sign” and “for.” Add “agricultural” in the third line before “commercial.”
• “C” (construction signs) - possibly change area from 12s.f. back to 6s.f. or consider different sizes
for single-family home versus multi-family home development. The Committee went into a long
discussion about construction signs. Some Committee members were concerned that there might
be a plethora of 12s.f. signs for small construction projects on individual homes if we allowed the
signs to be larger than 6s.f. Other members did not believe that this would be the case. In the end,
the COC could not agree, so Chairman Goodman offered to ask people that he knew in the
construction industry if there was a standard size for these types of signs and/or if they’d make
their signs larger if they were allowed to. He’ll report back to the Committee in May.
Susan B. noticed that architectural firms and financial institutions, among other entities, were typically
noted on construction signs and that the existing law listed the various entities in Section 221-5.A.2.d.
She wondered why the Town did not consider these signs off-premise, since the architectural firms or
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financial institutions weren’t usually on the premises where the construction was happening. Staff
explained that the proposed draft law eliminated the list because it was not content neutral. Susan B. still
felt that the Town was permitting temporary off-premise signs by allowing construction signs that
contained organizations not on the premises, pointing out that this was contrary to the prohibited section
of the law which prohibited off-premise signs. Chairman Goodman noted that this was something the
Committee should think about and possibly address in the draft law.
The Committee left off at item “C” (construction signs) in the Temporary Section on page 4 and will pick
up there at the May COC meeting.
Agenda Item No. 4 – Other Business: None.
Next meeting date tentatively scheduled for May 15, 2013.
• Continued discussion of Town Draft Revised Sign Law, Section 221-6 Temporary Signs then
moving on to Section 221-7 Regulated Signs.
Meeting adjourned at 8:22 pm.
Respectfully Submitted,
Sandy Polce, Administrative Staff