A four-story building at Frazier Avenue and Tremont Street got a variance for a new sign Thursday afternoon - and members of a city committee wondered if they might have found a glitch in downtown Chattanooga's year-old form-based code.
Developer Jimmy Hudson got a variance for a 4-foot-by-4-foot "monument" sign near the street corner at The Terrace at Frazier, his commercial and residential building at 345 Frazier Ave., that's home to such businesses as Regions Bank. The sign will advertise the bank's drive-through windows.
The city's form-based code zoning rules, which focus more on urban streetscapes, pedestrians and motorists than on the residential, industrial or commercial usage of a site, calls for an 18-foot setback from a road right-of-way for a monument sign.
But the form-based code committee whittled that down to a zero-foot setback for Hudson, after he explained his building is built right up against the right-of-way and doesn't have room for an 18-foot setback.
"The choices for us are slim and none," Hudson said. "We think this is our only opportunity and location to put the sign."
The proposed sign would be smaller than the 8-foot-by-4-foot sign that Hudson has had up since the building opened in 2009.
Most buildings downtown are built close to the right-of-way, said Karen Hundt, director of the Regional Planning Agency's community design group.
A number of board members agreed, including Heidi Hefferlin, a founder and the managing partner at HK Architects. Hefferlin wondered how an 18-foot setback made sense when urban design calls for lot lines right up against right-of-ways.
Form-based code may be tweaked to change the 18-foot setback requirement for monument signs, Hundt said.
"It is something that we have identified that we might want to look at in our 12-month review of the code," she said after the meeting.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or on Twitter @meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.