Mendon discussion favors banning off-premise billboards and digital signs, will send recommendations to city council

Mendon Planning Commission members spent the meeting reviewing sign and billboard policy options and agreed to move toward recommending a ban on off-premise billboards and on digital (moving) signage within the city and its area of impact.

Commissioners discussed two categories of signage: on-premise signs (monuments and building-mounted signs for a business on the property) and off-premise signs (billboards placed to advertise businesses or goods sold elsewhere). Commissioners said the chief concern is permanence: when large pole or electronic billboards go up, local governments face limited ability to remove them later, and removal costs can fall to taxpayers.

Participants said they favored keeping on-premise signage consistent between Mendonincorporated areas and the cityarea of impact, allowing low monument-style or building-mounted signs but not tall pole signs. They also said ground-illuminated monuments (lights shining down onto a static sign) are preferable to signs that change messages or use animated/digital displays because moving or frequently changing displays are more likely to distract motorists and to create light pollution in residential areas.

Several commissioners said they had reviewed sample ordinances from neighboring municipalities and planned to request a copy of Loganor other model sign codes to use as a template. One commissioner noted Logan had recently updated sign regulations, and staff volunteers agreed to collect ordinances from Logan and other cities (Provo was mentioned as an example) and return with draft language.

Commissioners also discussed grandfathering and jurisdictional limits. They noted existing tall signs in older commercial strips had been grandfathered under prior codes; removing those signs could be costly. They discussed that the cityonly directly controls signs within its boundaries but can include its area of impact in planning recommendations; county rules may differ and could override city preferences for lands outside the incorporated limits.

Next steps agreed at the meeting: staff and volunteers will collect existing ordinances referenced (Logan and at least one ordinance noted as "'12" or 2012 in search results), draft a short list of prohibited sign types for the commission (a clear "prohibited" list was recommended), and forward those recommendations to the Mendon City Council for consideration.

Votes recorded on unrelated procedural items at the meeting included approval of the November minutes and a motion to dismiss the meeting; those procedural votes were not tied to the sign discussion.