Staff proposes clarifications to sign code focused on placement, setbacks and fairness

City staff presented draft, non-size edits to the sign code focused on clarity and safety, and asked the council for feedback on several technical points.

A staff presenter (identified in the meeting as Brad) said the draft seeks to "reduce that to 1 sign to each street front," so a property with three street frontages could have a freestanding sign on each frontage. He described a proposed 5-foot setback from rights-of-way, access easements and property lines and said signs should not be located within visibility triangles at corners where sightlines are needed for turning movements.

Brad said the draft clarifies how allowed height interacts with building height in different zoning districts and that acceptable pole materials (wood, brick) remain a planning-department review item; variances have been considered by the planning board in earlier applications. The draft removes a requirement that freestanding signs must be located only within landscape areas and would allow signs within parking lots if they are bollard-protected.

Council members raised a recurring question about multi-tenant parcels and whether each tenant or an entire parcel should be limited to a single freestanding sign. Brad said the current code could be interpreted as allowing only one freestanding sign per parcel but that past practice sometimes treated separate businesses on one parcel as separate for signage; he said staff would review and propose clarifying language.

No formal action was taken; staff will revise language to address multi-tenant scenarios and bring recommended edits back for further consideration.