Fits and Starts

As I’ve written before, Google Alerts (go to www.google.com/alerts and follow the instructions to set them up) provide daily (or weekly, if preferred) updates about news or website posts that relate to your desired subject.

Google alerts for “sign codes,” “sign regulations” and “historic signage” unearth sign-related conflicts between business owners and government officials or business owners and residents (or business owners and residents vs. government officials) almost daily.

Inevitably, the results present a mixed bag of encouraging and discouraging news. Some municipal officials see the light and understand that common-sense, consistent sign regulations help economic growth, whereas others turn a blind eye to long-term economic vitality and remain beholden to special-interest groups that often espouse an anti-sign agenda.

These recent news items provide a fitting representation of sign-code news:

• In Birmingham, the city’s Design Review Committee is embroiled in a dispute with the owner of a strip-mall owner in the Five Points South neighborhood. The approximately 50-year-old mall was originally built with plastic-faced, internally lit signs which have since deteriorated. A patchwork of mismatched, non-compliant signs has sprouted in their place. According to a October 29 Birmingham News article, Raymond Josof, son of the property owner, has been notify by the city of required sign repairs, but the city hasn’t addressed parking, lighting or other issues, which Josof said the family paid for itself because of the city’s failure to help. When the owner of a new tenant, Pro Computers, applied for a permanent-sign permit, the city denied approval, and allowed only a 60-day, temporary sign half the size of the proposed, permanent sign. At the conclusion of the temporary permit, the Committee demands a signage master plan that will bring the whole city into code compliance.

• The Delaware (PA) County Council awarded a $126,500 community-development block grant to the Lansdowne Theater Corp. to fund restoration work on the building’s trademark marquee. Opened in 1927, the theater showed movies and hosted live performances until an electrical fire in 1987 shuttered the facility. With the grant money, a sign that replicates the original lettering – but illuminated with LED bulbs, rather than incandescent – will be built and installed.

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• In Milton, GA, a northern suburb of Atlanta, business owners object to restrictions against window signage. None is permitted in the city’s Crabapple and Birmingham Crossroads historic areas, and businesses outside those districts may only devote 5% of window space to such graphics. Sandwich-board sidewalk signs are also illegal. Robin Colletti, one local business owner, said limited opportunities to advertise to passing pedestrians and motorists were harmful to small business. Robyn MacDaonald, a Milton city planner (oh, those planners), said the ordinance was written to preserve local aesthetics, but said the city was addressing ordinance modifications. A City Council vote is planned for November.

• Perhaps expectedly, some positive signs emerged from two Montana cities (one expects no-nonsense common sense from the Big Sky country). In Bozeman, city officials announced free, lunchtime training sessions to explain city-development codes. The city is devoting an entire session to signs, and will address sign-area calculations, requirements for a comprehensive sign plan and explanations for when a permit is required. Also, Kalispell officials invested $4,000 to hire Cygnet Strategies to conduct an effectiveness study of its wayfinding. According to a story published October 30 on www.dailyinterlake.com, the study revealed dated, ambiguous directional signage, and said a comprehensive overhaul could cost more than $700,000. It’s unknown whether city leaders will spend that heavily in bolstering its identity, but at least they’ve taken a key first step.