Chattanooga business owners will have more options for advertising if a major revamp of a decades-old sign code gets city support next month.
Proposed changes to Chattanooga’s rules on signs could clarify the code and lift longstanding prohibitions on both public murals and sandwich board signage, among other shifts. The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency is suggesting the changes, and its staff members are aiming to take a draft plan to the city council in December.
If planners get a green light from the council, restrictions preventing businesses from using murals to refer to their establishments would end, along with a ban on placing sandwich boards along sidewalks. Businesses with public entrances would be permitted to place signage not just on rights of way, but also in parking lots, walking paths and other places.
The office of Mayor Tim Kelly has pressed for the changes.
“From my time in the business world, I knew our sign ordinance and the enforcement of it were a mess,” Kelly said in a news release. “This updated ordinance will give local businesses and organizations clarity on how they can display signs and will bring some common sense to our policy.”
The release also noted past issues with city signage.
In 2023, the owners of the Naughty Cat Cafe were forced to stop using a rolling sign on the sidewalk in front of the business. In 2014, city officials said that a wall mural showing flying doughnuts amounted to illicit advertising for a nearby bakery.
The first attempt to update the city’s sign code in years is, at its core, an attempt to make the rules clearer and more sensible, according to Darien Gilkenson of the regional planning agency. Many of the changes from the old code to the draft of the new rules come down to simplification, Gilkenson, a planner, said during a presentation to city council members Tuesday.
Surveys, public input sessions and consultations with business leaders went into the proposals, she and Emily Wood, a principal planner for the city, told the council. Changes to the rules were meant to put the city on a more business- and art-friendly footing, Gilkenson said. The sandwich board prohibition is one example.
“These are all around the city, but you might not know that they are currently illegal, and so we are not enforcing that — mostly because there’s such an added benefit to our business community and the pedestrians that are around,” Gilkenson said.
Preventing business owners from advertising — or alluding to – their businesses in exterior wall murals is another example of a rule that planning agency staff members think could stand to shift.
“So, as we all know, Chattanooga is a very creative city, and the mayor really wanted murals to be another outlet for this,” Gilkenson said. “Let’s have more art all around.”
(READ MORE: Chattanooga’s Naughty Cat Cafe forced to take down sign before holiday weekend)
But beyond the rules, the way the code is written is due for some updates.
Adding tables — more than 20 — and definitions of terms to the document should give business owners and sign makers a better idea of what’s allowed, Gilkenson said. The old code is written in complicated legal language, she said. Stripping it from a new draft code was a priority.
Gilkenson showed the council a proposed change from part of the current code to the draft the agency has written. The section of the code now is seven lines of text long. The draft version is presented as a table and contains about 20 words.
Contact Mariah Franklin at mfranklin@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.
Staff photo / In 2022, merchandise sits in the storefront at the Naughty Cat Cafe. The city of Chattanooga in 2023 ordered the establishment’s owners to remove a rolling sign advertising the business.