Board denies hotel’s request for additional pole-style signage at American Way over covenant and safety concerns

The Greenwood Board of Zoning Appeals denied a two-part sign variance request for a newly built hotel at 1499 American Way, voting 5–0 to reject (1) a request to allow a second ground-mounted sign and (2) a request to reduce the required setback for a high-rise pole sign from 65 feet to 45 feet.

Attorney Tom Vander Leucherin appeared for the petitioner (hotel ownership represented by Bip Patel and Sri Vigna[sic] Horda in the record) and asked for a 50-foot poll/pole sign with a 45-foot setback on a uniquely shaped parcel close to the interstate. Vander Leucherin argued that motorists on the Emerson/Main Street/I‑65 corridor commonly use pole signs as wayfinding landmarks, that the building is partially obscured by trees from the highway, and that a second ground-mounted sign would not injure neighboring property values.

A remonstrator, Brent Tilson, who owns property immediately north of the hotel site, told the board a private covenant recorded against nearby parcels prohibits single-pylon pole signage on restricted properties and said the petitioner’s proposal appeared to be an attempt to circumvent that covenant by proposing a two-pole structure. “They have now come back with a 2 pole sign in an effort to try and be clever with the wording. We think this is an attempt to circumvent the intent of restriction,” Tilson said.

City planning staff recommended denial and cited concerns about visual sign clutter, driver distraction and lack of practical difficulty: staff noted that the new hotel already has large illuminated wall signs visible from the interstate and that reasonable alternatives exist to ground pole signage, including existing corridor signage and permitted building signage. Staff also pointed to unresolved private agreements and the safety history of an older downtown poll sign that had structural concerns.

The board admitted the record into evidence, then voted 5–0 to deny the request for two ground-mounted signs and 5–0 to deny the setback reduction for a high-rise sign. The board instructed corporation counsel to draft findings of fact incorporating the staff report and record for formal adoption.

Speakers in the record included the petitioner’s attorney, a hotel principal, a nearby property owner who remonstrated on covenant and compatibility grounds, and city planning staff. The transcript shows the board’s action preserves the current limits on ground-mounted/pole signage for the South Park/American Way corridor and leaves available other sign-permitting options, such as building signage or use of existing corridor pole signs (subject to private agreements).