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City to reconvene business advisory group and pause window-sign enforcement while code is reviewed
Summary
Commissioners agreed to ask the city manager to form a Community Redevelopment Area advisory group of business owners to revise the downtown window-sign ordinance and to instruct code enforcement to pause abatement of pending cases while the committee crafts recommendations.
Small-business owners, including a downtown yoga-studio operator and other merchants, told the commission that the city’s window-sign rule is burdensome and inconsistently enforced. The Commission responded by directing staff to form a Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) advisory board of business participants and to pause abatement on pending window-sign enforcement cases while the ordinance is reviewed.
Local business owner Keith Patton told the commission he had received a summons over window coverings that he says are functional, reduce heat and protect privacy. “There’s no real benefit to me or to society as I see it,” Patton said, adding a city cursory survey showed “at least 38 businesses in the downtown area are non compliant” under the current measurement rule. He asked the commission to alter or rewrite the ordinance and to allow materials such as perforated sunshade coverings that reduce heat and provide display area.
Commissioners and staff recalled that the sign ordinance was revised approximately a year earlier to change the measure of allowed window coverage and that businesses were given a compliance period that ended in December. City staff reported that code enforcement did a survey and counted about 38 noncompliant businesses out of roughly 220.
The commission agreed on several items: it asked the city manager to solicit applications and form a CRA advisory board that would work with business owners to draft recommended changes, to consider including transparent area exceptions for perforated window coverings, and to present suggested ordinance changes to the commission after stakeholder review. City Attorney asked the commission whether staff should “abate any pending cases” during the review; commissioners gave consensus direction to pause abatement while the committee works on proposals.
Commissioners said they preferred the changes to be developed by business stakeholders and then returned to the commission for formal ordinance revision; no immediate ordinance changes were adopted at the meeting.
