The town of Signal Mountain's new sign ordinance will be the guiding document for all the new businesses set to open shop in the near future.
The document still awaits its second and final vote to be formally adopted, but Councilman Dick Gee already sees the writing on the wall.
Signal Mountain Town Council representatives Bill Wallace, Annette Allen, Vice Mayor Susan Robertson, Mayor Bill Lusk and Design Review Commission Chairwoman Karen Rennich, clockwise from left, look over a pictorial guide to help business owners understand the new sign ordinance. The companion piece will be reduced down and put into book format and handed out with sign applications. Councilman Dick Gee is pictured, but not seen, behind Rennich."We didn't want to be so rigid so people couldn't be creative, couldn't do what they feel works best for them," said Karen Rennich, chair of the Design Review Commission tasked with updating and enforcing the guidelines. "We talked about that some to say 'This is what we want or isn't what we want.'"
The ordinance instead relies on a companion book with pictures of acceptable, prohibited and exempted signs for easy reference. "The most substantive change" is that light box signs are no longer allowed, according to Rennich. This decision, as well as what is deemed acceptable, was based on public feedback as well as careful consideration by DRC members in light of what's already present on the mountain, she said.
"If a business owner comes up with a sign that meets the requirements, then someone on the [DRC] board doesn't like it, then I feel like you get into an area where the regs don't apply," Gee warned at a preliminary meeting to discuss the proposed ordinance before the first vote. "Then it becomes personal. Then it becomes a judgment call rather than whether or not it meets requirements. That bothers me. I think we need to guard [against] that; write that in."
The ordinance which was unanimously accepted on first vote is the same as what was originally proposed.
Gee also questioned the banning of electronic signs.
"Technology, whether we like it or not, one of these days is going to lead us to lighted signs which will be the norm," he said. "Those good messages could be posted on a lighted sign that could be very useful to the community. Are we really trying to say we will never, ever, ever accept a lighted board sign in this ordinance?"
"That's for the next Council to decide," said Vice Mayor Susan Robertson, the town's appointee to the DRC.
The non-electric version of such a sign, the reader board style former Signal Mountain Middle School sign that stands on Taft Highway, will be exempt from the ordinance since it stands on private property. The Lions Club sign at the front of the mountain will also be exempt since it is in the public right of way and is an "important informational sign," Rennich said.
"I think [what's prohibited] is best addressed through what is internally lit signs/ neon; large, large signs; and one business having four, five or six signs," she said.
All existing non-conforming signs will have to be replaced based on a list of "triggers," as opposed to a specific time frame.
"It's hard to tell somebody struggling with their business 'You have to take that sign down,'" Robertson said. "There's always going to be a number of triggers, so let's let the triggers decide when the sign needs be changed."
Such instances include a business moving to a new location, modifying the sign, the related business ceasing operations and major deterioration of the sign.
The intent of the new regulations is not to be "overly restrictive," but to "update and clear up inconsistencies" between the two previous related documents, said Rennich.
"We don't want to put anything in here you all don't want us to enforce," Town Manager Honna Rogers told Council members when the new sign ordinance was first introduced at their December work session. "There are a couple things in here people are doing already. It's going to make some people mad when we start enforcing. We will do some education to businesses - this is out now; we will give you some time to comply."