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Local businesses urge council to grandfather electronic message displays amid dark‑skies debate
Summary
Business owners and written commenters told the Liberty Hill City Council that proposed dark‑skies and sign rules would impose large costs on small businesses and asked that existing electronic message displays (EMDs) be treated as legal nonconforming (grandfathered) during the UDC rewrite.
Business owners told the Liberty Hill City Council during a lengthy public‑comment period that proposed dark‑skies regulations and changes to the Unified Development Code could render existing electronic message displays unusable and harm small, local retailers.
Several speakers asked the council to classify existing EMDs as legally nonconforming or "grandfathered" so the rights to use and repair signs would transfer with property sales. "We dim their output after dark to keep them creating a nuisance," the mayor read from a submitted letter signed by Chad Moore, a local building owner who asked that small businesses be granted permanent legal nonconforming status.
Keith Bright, who owns a cigar shop on Main Street, criticized specific proposed limits, saying minimum message durations and mandated overnight shutdowns would undercut the utility of modern signs. "Most of my messages are 5 seconds," he said. "Thirty seconds would you might as well just paint a sign and not have an electronic message display." He also called for permitting and repair rules that let business owners replace damaged EMDs without onerous new approvals.
Business representatives said staff had previously suggested documenting each existing sign’s size, height and configuration so the city would have a baseline for rebuilding; several written submissions read into the record repeated that proposal and asked that legal nonconforming status convey with property transfers.
Supporters of regulations were not recorded as speaking during the public comment period, and councilmembers did not take final policy action on dark‑skies rules at this meeting. The comments came amid an ongoing UDC rewrite. Interim City Attorney Lauren Mueller told council earlier in the meeting that a vested‑rights (grandfathering) determination process is being added to the UDC text amendments under consideration.
Councilmembers acknowledged hearing the concerns and said staff should continue outreach. The UDC amendments discussed later in the meeting were adopted in part to streamline administrative processes and to add a formal vested‑rights determination; any substantive dark‑skies sign standards remain part of the larger UDC rewrite process.
The council proceeded with other agenda items and did not vote on a separate grandfathering policy at this meeting.
