Springdale art board begins review of mural policy, tables formal recommendation

Springdale Art Review Board members met April 3 at the Springdale Community Center to review and begin drafting recommended changes to the town's mural policy after recent, contested mural installations drew questions from the planning commission.

Niall, town staff member leading the agenda item, told the board that “the town council has asked the art review board to review and potentially update the town's policy on murals,” and summarized the current review path: the art review board recommends, the planning commission checks code compliance, and the town council makes the final decision.

The review matter was prompted by multiple recent mural applications and at least one installation done without a permit. Tom Dancy, town staff, said that the contested mural “was installed without a permit. There is a code enforcement action on that mural. There was a fine assessed and potential additional fines accruing, which have been suspended until there’s a resolution of either you get a permit or you take the mural down.” The board discussed whether changes to the policy should be forward-looking only or applied to pending cases.

Board members focused discussion on several recurring issues the planning commission had flagged in its draft policy: whether murals must use the town’s building-color palette or signage palette (the draft is ambiguous), how large or tall murals may be, whether murals visible off the property should be allowed in residential zones, how to treat murals on fences and at parcel edges, whether imagery that functions as advertisement is permissible, and what maintenance requirements should apply once a mural is approved.

Members voiced a wide range of perspectives. Several members said they support public art and want to preserve a “village” character; others worried that too-liberal approvals could make the town look commercial or overly busy. The board discussed tools suggested by staff and members to limit quantity or character of murals, including numerical caps, adjacency rules (minimum distance between murals), limits on height or placement (for example, prohibiting second-story murals), clearer color-palette limits tied to natural materials, and a stricter application packet requiring a scaled mock-up and color renderings.

On maintenance, members noted no specific mural-maintenance requirement is currently written in the mural policy; staff said property-maintenance provisions in the town code are the closest existing mechanism but that the policy could add explicit mural maintenance and removal triggers.

Members also reviewed the procedural history cited by staff: the town adopted a mural policy in 2012; the planning commission drafted a revised policy after reviewing several applications; the planning commission referred the draft to the art review board because commissioners wanted the board’s artistic and practical input before adopting policy changes.

After roughly an hour of discussion the board voted to table a formal recommendation and asked staff to prepare a revised draft and to schedule a multi-hour work session to review the draft line-by-line. The board’s motion to table passed by voice vote; the meeting record shows the motion and the second and multiple “ayes” from members. The board asked staff to bring the town color-palette materials and to circulate a word-version of the draft policy with proposed edits before the next meeting.

Next steps: staff will prepare a marked-up policy that addresses the items the board discussed — color palette clarity, size/height limits, residential visibility limits, application mock-ups, and maintenance expectations — and will return the draft for a dedicated work session. Board members and staff agreed to take the time necessary to develop recommended policy language; staff cautioned that, under Utah land-use rules, applications submitted under current ordinances must be processed under the rules in effect when an application was filed, and that the board’s recommendations should focus on what the town wants in future approvals rather than on any single existing mural application.

Votes at a glance: the board approved the meeting agenda at the start of the session and later approved a motion to table further action on the mural policy pending a staff-prepared draft and a work session. The meeting adjourned following the tabling motion.