Walnut Creek restarts sign-code update; staff, consultants seek input on signage and wayfinding

Walnut Creek’s Joint Planning Commission and Design Review Commission met in a study session on Jan. 30, 2025, to restart a multiyear update of the city’s sign regulations and design guidelines. Community Development Director Bridal Vanenbrand opened the presentation and introduced Minteer Harnish, the consultant team leading the update.

The project — launched in 2019, paused during the COVID-19 pandemic and restarted last year — aims to modernize sign standards and design guidance so they reflect current technologies and local preferences while remaining consistent with constitutional and building‑code limits. “It’s our intention to be able to use this process … to ultimately have a sign set of sign regulations that are congruent with what modern day signage requirement…might be,” Community Development Director Bridal Vanenbrand said.

The consultant team outlined core objectives: create clearer, more flexible standards that allow innovative design while giving predictable results; reflect contemporary trends such as electronic readerboards and logo‑based signage; update design guidelines; and address problem areas and efficiencies in the current rules. Michael Gibbons, project manager for Minteer Harnish, described the effort as a project initiation phase that will rely on commissioner feedback, focused outreach to the business community and public engagement through an online questionnaire and a project page on the city website.

Planner Nikki Zanchetta summarized the legal framework for sign regulation, stressing First Amendment limits. “Signs are a form of speech that are protected under the First Amendment,” Zanchetta said, and local rules must avoid content‑based distinctions. The consultants described three content‑neutral regulatory tools: location (where signs may be placed), time/duration (how long temporary signs may remain), and appearance/design (height, lighting, materials and letter size). Zanchetta and the consultants also noted that interior wayfinding and some accessibility requirements remain governed by building code and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Commissioners asked how the update would handle equity and inclusion, multilingual wayfinding, and wayfinding inside and outside public buildings. Brent Gibbons, principal planner at Minteer Harnish, said the team would examine approaches other Bay Area communities use for multilingual signage and accessibility. Commissioners also raised durability and materials — noting examples where signs needed replacement after fewer than 10 years — lighting (adjacency standards and examples such as 2,700K warm light), “blade” or projecting signs, skyline or rooftop signage, and the growing use of building façades and electronic displays as advertising.

Several commissioners discussed whether the city should adopt different standards by zone or character area — for example, downtown versus residential neighborhoods — and the consultants said standards can be tied to zoning districts or grouped zones to reflect those differences. The consultants also proposed a working group made up of a Design Review Commission member and a Planning Commission member, plus targeted outreach to the downtown business community and other stakeholders.

Staff said the working group would be voluntary and estimated the most intensive commitment at about 8–12 hours per month, with the schedule adaptable to volunteers’ availability. Staff solicited volunteers from both commissions during the meeting; two commissioners expressed interest. The study session did not include a motion or vote and produced no formal appointments.

Next steps the consultants outlined include drafting revised standards and design guidelines, conducting focused outreach to businesses and developers, publishing drafts on the city project web page, and providing periodic updates to both commissions. Staff and the consultant team said they will return with working drafts for review and incorporate commissioner and community feedback.

This was a study session; no regulatory changes or permit decisions were approved at this meeting.