Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Town Election and Planning Commission meeting. This board is comprised of town residents who are appointed by the Town Council and serve without pay. This is a regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. The meeting is being broadcast live on the Town Election and YouTube channel. Speakers must sign in before 8 a.m. on the sign-in sheet posted at the door. Speakers will be called to the podium off the list collected. Speakers are limited to three minutes. I am Frank Berry, the Chairman of the Town Election and Planning Commission. Other Planning Commission members present are... Good morning. Good morning, Jarrett Harrelson.

Good morning, Roscoe Kaufman.

Good morning, Tammy Henry.

Good morning, I'm Jamie Fite.

Good morning, I'm Brian Amick.

Good morning, I'm Betsy McCall.

At this time, I'll ask Commissioner fight this. You leave us in our invocation.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day and for the opportunities together in service to our community. Grant us wisdom as we consider the decisions before us and guide us to act with fairness, integrity and good judgment. Help us to listen with open minds to speak with respect and to seek what is best for all those we serve. both now and for the future generations. May our work today contribute to the well-being, growth, and unity of this community. We also ask your blessings over our military first responders and all those who serve, both in our local community and across our nation. Protect them, strengthen them, and watch over their families. Amen.

Amen. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. The meeting will now come to order. We have no deletions on the agenda. Moving to approval of the minutes from the May 20th meeting. Motion to approve. I have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor, please raise your right hand. That is unanimous. Our one item of new business this morning is a signed ordinance workshop. Stakeholder feedback in discussion. Ms. Jessica.

Good morning. On March 30th, 2026, the town of Lexington conducted stakeholder meetings regarding potential updates to the town sign ordinance. We have attached a memorandum prepared by the town's third party consultant, Rebecca Vance, who is here with us today, which is summarizing stakeholder feedback and identifying areas for further discussion. So with that, we're going to kick off and let her facilitate some of that discussion.

Okay. I know one of the big concerns we have is the wall signage. What constitutes, I mean window signage. You're right, you're right, window signage. Which we've heard that that does not, is not a sign. I would like to know what it is if it's not a sign.

Clarify. When you say that you've heard that, you mean you've heard that from stakeholder input?

Yes.

Okay.

Window cleans and things like that. So I would like to see that we make sure we clarify that in the ordinance and the limitation of it as well.

And by clarify, are you wanting us to have a separate allotment? I know we've been through this before, but we've gone back and forth from currently we view those as a permanent wall sign and it's part of that allotment. Are you interested in us looking into a separate allotment for window signage? Or...

I think it's a concern or our concern. It's part of using a static or window cling as a permanent building sign or street sign. It stays up year-round or multiple years and it's the whole length of the building. And the entire window looks like a billboard.

I think part of the... Thank you guys for having me. I think part of our discussion was with those, you know, with those, we talked to some of the actual sign contractors and, you know, the pictures that I think we had, you have the inside that is, you know, an advertisement for the business. You know, sometimes that takes up the entire window. You know, it's more of like shading almost. You can't tell. And those are usually done pretty well, but those are advertisements for the businesses. And then we also, when you think of window signage, the other more negative window signage we think about is the ones where they're advertising alcohol or cigarettes or a particular thing that they're selling. You can't regulate content for signage no matter where it is, but obviously you can go in and try to figure out a limitation for it and a window coverage, how much of the window can be covered by either one of those. And that's a clarification we could probably try to make.

That would be awesome. And that's what I think we're looking for.

Do y'all have an idea in mind of what you were thinking? I believe, if I remember correctly, the Small Business Advisory Committee made a suggestion, I think, of a third of the window. Or do y'all have a smaller square footage y'all were thinking? Okay.

Okay. Jessica, is the third of the window included in the total allowable signage square footage?

That would be something we could make part of the requirements, if that's what you all recommend.

Personally, I think that should be considered.

Okay.

What we're looking at, if they're going to leave it up permanently in shoes or shade, absolutely. I think the intent originally was for a temporary sign. If somebody has a promotional sale at a fast food restaurant, for example, and they've got a sale for this week only, X is on sale. I think that's what the temporary sign ordinance was kind of originally adopted for. And then I think it's kind of matriculated to we're going to put this up and advertise for business and leave it up year-round. And then from, well, it's going from a third of a one window pane is down the whole front wall of the business.

Would y'all be interested in, and just because I'm trying to clarify, having temps on window clean regulations that are separate from what is a permanent window clean?

Yes. Okay. Yes.

Perfect. And... You would like to keep, I mean, so currently right now, temporary banners are allowed. You're allowed one banner at a time and each business gets 60 calendar days a year. And they can be done in minimum increments of 20 days at a time. So there's a potential for three separate special events or promotional periods. Are y'all okay with that? Do you want to do it?

Is there a limitation on the size of that?

Yes, it's 32 square feet for a banner.

I think that's fine. Like grand openings or stuff like that's fine.

Okay.

So for clarification, you could have the banner and then you could have a temporary signage window claim too. Or do you want just one?

One or the other? Because right now you're only allowed one temporary banner at a time.

And to find banner...

It's just a banner between two posts. Okay.

Well, so I would think a banner is a banner and a window cling is a window cling.

Right. So do you want to allow them to have both a banner and window clings at the same time or do you, you know, or one or the other and you're allowed... Well, would they run concurrently with each other? They could, depending on how we write.

How often does a business need to run it for 60 days? Is it normally 20 or do they use all 60?

It depends. You see a lot of times with doctor's office and dentist's office, they will wait. and put out accepting new patient signs occasionally. But a lot of times whenever you have a new smaller business come in, they're using all 60 days to advertise their grand opening. And so new businesses, they're allotted an additional 30 days for their first calendar year. And so they're using all of those days in the very beginning because they want to advertise their grand opening for as long as possible. then there are places like those cell phone repair they'll add they break it up into whenever they're running a special um so it varies but some a lot of times smaller businesses utilize all days at the beginning established businesses um they run it during this i don't foresee that being too much of an issue i think if we can just get to a

what's being used permanently and what window cleaning is versus, I don't think the banners really dictate. I think people have small business grant openings, absolutely, it should be fine. I just think it's, we need to regulate a permanent window cleaning a little bit more versus a window cleaning that's going up a third of the window for a promotional inside the business or outside the business.

Those really aren't street. Some businesses may not have room to put up a banner.

Right. That is correct. And so if I'm understanding, you do not like the full window cleanings that cover the entire window. Is that correct?

Correct. Right, but I think, I don't know if you can allow it or you can't allow it, but I think if it goes towards the square footage of the sign allotment, then...

It should control itself. Right.

Because that's in essence exactly what they're doing, they're advertising.

So right now, the way that our ordinance is written, you're allowed a certain number of signage per road frontage. So it's two signs per road frontage. So if you have one road frontage, you're allowed two signs. If you have two road frontages, four, and so on. And then there is an allotment for the overall, um, site. So if you have one road frontage and you're in the commercial district, you cannot exceed 150 square foot of display area for your entire site. And if you have two road frontages, it's 225 square feet for your entire site. So that's a combination of monument and wall signs. So it does help to limit that because then if you dive even further, you have requirements for the size of the monument sign. It can't exceed a certain square footage. and then the wall sign is a percentage based off of the first story of the wall area it's attached to. And so you use all of those to combine them in to make sure that they're meeting and it kind of does help control signage overwhelming the site in most situations. So we would just say clarify the definition of what a permanent window sign is and add that as an option but you can't exceed these limits do you want to because of of adding that as an option do you want to change the limits that are currently allowed or keep them as is for signage what are the limits um two per road frontage well i think if you do that you could potentially change all the sign limits so i think it'd be maybe we need to put something in there about the window

If you utilize the windows, you can do this a third of the entire building windows, I guess. I don't know if you want to change the square footage of the actual requirement from a street sign and a monument sign.

Okay.

Or a pole sign, whatever.

Okay.

Okay. But then you want it to count towards the wall. The total display area. Right. I think as we were talking a little bit before the meeting, generally everyone thought that your ordinance was well-written and professional. And the issues that have been brought up are very nuanced issues. And an ordinance, you can't really catch everything or think of everything when you write an ordinance. And that's why you have the variance process, or that's why you allow some staff flexibility. And the particular issues that have been brought up are things that might happen once or twice in the entire the entire city. So you don't necessarily want to change an ordinance that's working just to fit those two situations. But you may want to more clearly define the variance process and what you can and can't go for and or give some more flexibility to staff. So when you get these situations that are just random, like corner lots or like the facades that have articulation and what do you count towards the total facade, You might want to give a little bit more flexibility to staff or encourage very clearly that these are perfect instances where you should go to the BCA for it. You can't think of every problem that's going to come up and you can't address all of them. You just want to allow the flexibility for those few times that it happens to be able to address those.

Yeah, and that's exactly why the variance board is intact for that simple reason that an ordinance isn't going to write every specific detail for every situation that may happen. So, I mean, I would encourage any business that thinks they have a variance ability to appeal for signage to go to the variance board.

Jessica, over the last, from 2025 and 2026, how many permits and variances have we had?

Well, I don't have the numbers from 2026. Because we're in the middle of the year, I want to say that we've only had two variances so far this year, and one of those was a sign and it was denied. In 2025, we issued a total of 86 sign permits and we had three sign variances requested. Two of those were approved. One was for an extra sign and two of them were miscellaneous. In 2024, we issued a total number of 103 sign permits. Five sign variances were requested and zero of those variances were approved. Four of those were for extra signs, and one was a miscellaneous.

So in two years, really, probably averaging 4.8%. That's a pretty good ordinance written. I mean, we're talking about less than 5%.

Exactly.

That's pretty good. And we're halfway through the year, and it's 1%. So actually, this is probably right at 4%.

I mean, it's dead on 4%. 4% in 24 and 3% in 25. So I think that process is working.

As far as some of the other things that we discussed, I know window signage was a big one. Electronic and lit signs, I mean, so right now we are seeing the new trend are the bright LED lights signs hanging in the windows and then the new commercial, I guess holiday lighting, I guess you could say. It's the LED lights that change the storefronts around the windows. Our ordinance currently does not allow those types of lighting and lit LED signs. Is that something we want to continue to not allow or?

Well, I think that's two things, right? The lights around the buildings. I think, okay, they're seasonal, but not year-round, personally. That's just my opinion. And then we're talking about... bright LED lit signs. I think there's got to be some kind of, I don't know if there's DOT rag or whatever, but some kind of loom requirement or whatever so it's not distracting drivers in too bright. You're talking about a monument sign. Well, just loom. It could be a billboard. It could be anything. They actually have the same. They hang them in windows now. That's the one that I'm referring to. They do the same thing.

They say like vape or...

But both of them have the same project, the light looms type deal.

And definitely none of that broke LED lighting around the perimeter of the window on the inside.

Jessica, you will go find out if the county or the state has an illumination degree.

Yes, we can look into that. I think we discussed SEDOT before.

I know there's something out there. I've heard about it, but I don't recall what it is.

Going back to seasonal lighting or holiday lighting, you've got to define timing because we celebrate so many holidays these days that they could be up pretty much all year round.

And that's what we're seeing. A lot of people, the new trend is to, you see them on homes as well, is to install those little halo lights under the eaves. And they're changing them to pink for Valentine's Day or orange for Halloween, red, white, and blue for the 4th. So it's just new technology. And, you know, as that is introduced, Do we want to modernize our ordinance to allow those things or keep it as is? Because as it's written, it's not allowed.

I think if we do adopt it, maybe it should be reflective of what the town, kind of with the town's calendar or something. Okay. It should make it easy. If we don't, we can do none. But what was the feedback from the community on that?

I don't think there was much discussion about that other than we went into the next conversation, which is the digital side of things.

Yeah, well, I mean, they said they favored professionally integrated lighting, halo-lit signs, and tastefully architectural lighting. Concerns focused on excessive brightness, flashing displays, and poorly maintained lighting.

So they're basically saying if you do it professionally, but if someone wants to do it themselves, that kind of gets hard to regulate. You can't regulate that.

And you get into a point where you can't tell someone they can't DIY that they have to go purchase from a contractor.

So she mentioned uplighting. You and I, we put on our front view, uplight a plant, a tree or something. Businesses are doing that now, doing the uplighting. And are you guys okay with that? And then the next question is they're then changing it for the season. So I don't know that you can regulate or that you want to regulate uplighting if it's done well. Usually that makes the building look nicer. But then if they're changing them, if they're changing them, I would say no, that you can't change them during the day back and forth. But then if they're changing them for season, that's kind of your question.

Yeah, so we want to avoid like the flashing.

Yeah, for the uplight. We probably need to say uplighting specifically because right now your ordinance doesn't allow it. They're using that kind of to advertise the building.

Because some of the uplighting that you'll see changing colors every week, purple, green onto the buildings versus.

You're following that changing colors as long as it's seasonal.

Right, I think otherwise it should. If we do the uplighting, can we regulate the color?

That is a very good question.

I like going back to what Jamie said, the time frame. You can only change your lighting. From a natural color during seasonal. Two weeks prior to a... Except for Christmas, because Christmas starts. That's what I'm afraid of. People are going to be like, I've got my Christmas lights up six months a year. We've got to wait for the epiphany in January. Easter. It really goes to...

Well, if you do, based on the holiday, how long do we give them? The day or do we give them a week?

Well, I think, like I said, you just mimic the town. If we decide to do that, what's the town? When their lights go up, when's the light come down?

How about you allow, they need to be natural lighting. Because I think once you get into holidays, the question is whose holidays? And I don't know that you want to get into that. So you can do natural or what we consider natural and you can define that. white or off-white, and then you're allowed to change it a certain number of times or for a certain length of time and not get into whether it's a holiday or not a holiday. You're just allowed to do it in a certain amount of time, but then no flashing.

Can that be regulated? That'd be tough.

I mean, it will be, yeah. It's just...

If you say you give them four weeks, well, I'm going to do three weeks in December. I'm going to do a week in Easter. I'm going to do a day. How are you going to break that up?

Have you gotten complaints on that? Yes. Because they don't like the colors they're using?

They're flashing or it's the rope lighting or the LED strip lighting in the windows that changes colors. Those are the complaints that we've received.

And projecting light on into the street. Different colors onto the building to change the whole... It looks like Halloween sometimes when it's not.

We'll do some more research on that. That's definitely something we'll gather some more information and see what other jurisdictions are doing in regards to that.

Have you gotten complaints on the people projecting stuff onto walls? Like, you know, they said Halloween's a big one, sometimes Christmas.

Like an image?

No, we don't see that a ton. Projecting signs are not allowed for the sign ordinance, but we don't see that often. It's more of the rope LED strip lighting, which is currently prohibited.

So when we're talking about the rope lighting, they're will either rope the windows or rope the entire outside of the building or the door or something like that. What are your thoughts on those?

I think the windows and I think no. I think that was the example that was provided at the community feedback. But I think where you're talking about rope in the building, you've got to be careful because that gets back into the seasonal lights we were talking about. Consider what you consider a rope versus a bulb.

One of the examples was there was an all along the top. That's kind of a how do you limit or what do you want to limit or not limit If we say no rope lighting, we just say no rope lighting, and we need to define...

I think we do, and I'm fine with up lighting, but not the rope lighting.

We need to add a definition for both of those. Yeah. And again, this is... As technology changes, those are things, I mean, you know, who would have thought you would rope light an entire building or rope light a window? I mean, you know, we think of lit signs, I mean, it was just an open sign. The open sign flashed and it had some, but now that's what they're trying to do. Anything to bring attention to their businesses. What do you want? Aesthetic?

You have a major monument sign out front or it's on the building. And you can have too much, excuse me, sign pollution.

Yes. I think the goal is to allow businesses to advertise and whether that's their business or promotional things that they're having, but also continue to preserve the character and aesthetics of the town. I think that's some of the feedback that we got, that everyone really loves the fact that you can tell when you are inside the town of Lexington because of the ordinances that we have. So we want to continue to preserve that, but also work with the businesses to allow them to do some of the things that they're asking. Another big topic is digital and electronic messaging signs. This has been discussed numerous times over the years, and currently the ordinance prohibits those. What are your thoughts on that? I will tell you most of the stakeholder feedback that we received supported allowing them in some capacity. Specifically, they called out schools and churches and community institutions, but they want to restrict flashing, animated displays, having brightness and dimming standards, and a minimum message hold.

I agree with all that.

Was that from businesses or was that from property owners?

I was just getting ready to ask. In participation, how much of this was from businesses versus residents?

We had five citizens participate in the stakeholder meetings. The rest of the engagement was from businesses and residents. sign contractors. We had two sign contractors come to the stakeholder meetings and then we had 11 businesses. No, 12 businesses show up.

I would agree with all the potential ordinance amendments if we were to do that.

Do you want to do that? Is your recommendation, yes.

Jessica, this is the electronic messaging that you're talking about, and it's not allowed today?

That is correct.

So this is digital analytics.

If this were allowed, is that just going to create more review by town staff to make sure things are in compliance?

Depending on how the ordinance is written, yes. Because then we will need to, you know, if there are regulations on dimming and lighting standards and things of that nature, we would have to have those submitted to us. We would have to review them to ensure that they are installed to code. And then we would need to look into how do we continue to monitor that from a code enforcement perspective after the sign is installed. So potentially, yes.

connect next question if we were to allow on how many businesses are going on a plot of war a lot but the digital signs up and down but when you make order of any clarification of because it technology change we talk about digital messaging are we talking about led billboards that has messaging on it because there's there's ways around it which is is there a distinct difference or does that include all both of them you're referring to business signs so not billboards um currently our ordinance does not allow off-premise signage um yeah but when i'm looking when i'm talking about i guess uh business signs you don't have a business sign and have a led screen or you want the whole sign is led

We are talking about you mostly see them with your monument signs where they're able to put a message on it. And it's an electronic message that may change or be a static hold message that changes every so often. I'm trying to think of some that we have close by the town. I think there's a couple of dentist offices right on the outskirts of town that have them. There are some churches. Almost all of Lexington School District 1, their schools have them except for the ones that are in town. And they have like a scrolling message board at the bottom that tells you events and things of that nature. So that is what would be considered an electronic messaging where they can change the message, change the copy, and it's electronically done.

And you can't regulate the content they put on it.

You cannot regulate the content.

But we could regulate, like, you could have this sign, but you could only have X amount of square footage of digital.

You could regulate that. You could regulate lighting, dimming. There's different standards out there for that. You can regulate whether or not they're certified by, I think it's USF, I believe, but you can regulate that. whenever it's installed to ensure that they're installing.

I just see everybody up and down 378 changing their sign out.

I will tell you, it is a question I get asked often. And I think that if there is a change in the ordinance, you will see an influx of sign changes happen.

Can you regulate the structure of it, though, instead of some formal messaging sign out?

Right, so yes, it would need to be permanent. I mean, unless y'all are open to portable electronic signs. At this time, we don't allow that. But you could, and then it would be held, if it's in the commercial corridor, it would be held to the architectural appearance standards that we have for signs now, which encourages the use of materials that match your building, which are mostly masonry materials. And so you can... require those things, they would be still held to that standard.

Okay, so it would completely change the statics of our community, but is there any community that has adopted this in the area that we might be?

I mean, Lexington County allows electronic messaging. Yeah, but... Or you mean from going from not allowing it to I do not know that information. I would have to do additional research.

And you could limit... where they're allowed also, you know, from an aesthetic standpoint and with your, you know, corridor architectural standards, you could say not in certain areas, but then you would then know when you went from one area to another because they're going to try to have it. And then do you make that as part of, you limit it based on their total signage allowance? So they want a digital sign, then they have to limit the wall on the other side.

Yeah, do you want to incentivize it for them to have smaller signage elsewhere if they utilize a digital? I mean, that is an option. You don't want them to just get more signage if they add a digital?

I just don't think that would look good on a monument sign at all.

Well, they couldn't add more. more than what's existing correct so right now right now a monument sign cannot exceed 64 square feet in display area if it has changeable copy which electronic messaging is considered changeable copy um right now we require it to be the manual changeable copy they're allowed an additional 20 square foot for that changeable copy so the overall monument sign can be 84 square feet if they have manual changeable copy.

Jessica, what about the possibility of having this allowable for institutional type businesses, or not businesses, but uses like schools, so they could notify parents and folks about what's going on, if there's something important to know, but not actual businesses?

I think if you do that, you open up a legal aspect.

Yeah, it's difficult to allow one versus another, and I think you would probably get sued just to try it, to sue, and it's kind of an equal protection. You've got to treat everybody equally no matter what their use is. So if you allow them, you've got to allow them for everybody.

Basically, in my mind, it's either we do or we don't because I don't know how you regulate who gets what without getting that potential of a lawsuit.

think part of it wasn't part of the conversation from the sign contractors that there is new technology that you know does keep the kind of the light pollution that we would think of from those signs that the lighting is a little bit different so I think that as the technology gets better and better they can you know the quality and the aesthetics of them can look different but it is you know a preference as a community You have architectural standards. The question is, do you want to allow, you allow copy. The question is, do you want to allow that to be digital copy on monument signs?

I'm going to go back to what I originally said. If we change it and you come out down 378 Highway 1, Highway 6, everybody's going to want to change their sign to add this digital portion to it. And it's just going to be a menagerie of digital signs coming into the town.

Yep.

And we've tried to preserve the look of the town all these years, and I think we've done a pretty good job. And as Jessica said earlier, people outside of the town have commented on how well we've done it.

I think one of the things I try to say to everyone when I come to planning, it is your choice as a community what you want to look like. You come up with a vision of what you want your city to be, and your ordinances and standards should you know, preserve that or encourage people to construct new construction or renovations that keep with that vision. So you have that choice. And if your choice is, as you've already done with your architectural standards, you know, if you have a particular vision for it and it doesn't include digital signs, that is your preference as a community to do that. People may not like it, but it's something you're allowed to do. And I know that businesses want to be able to advertise, As long as you give them other options of how to advertise, you can limit specific types.

And speaking of the digital age, a lot of people get their information not from driving down the street, but you can search it on your phone.

Are there any schools or churches down in the town that are doing it now?

Electronic signage is not allowed at all in town. They all have manual changeable copy, which is where you go out there and you manually put the letters on there, the message.

Yeah, I think there's some spot parcels that are not town properties that people may associate in the town, but there's not technically in any town.

That is correct. And you will receive a lot of pressure from your school or institutional uses because they think that they are different and they should be able to have those signs. And I think we all value what they do and want to encourage them to have signage to communicate with the public. But from a legal standpoint, you can't treat them differently. You can't. A sign is a sign through the state law we have and through case law that is kind of crafted how we have our sign ordinances now, you can't. Even if you want to, you couldn't because you're going to open yourself up to a lawsuit. Why do they get special treatment and a business doesn't?

Well, I personally think that we should not allow that. I think the current code should remain as is. As our chairman said, I think you can go down the corridors and you'll just see flashing signs everywhere or messaging. And I don't know that we need that. Unrelated to the electronic messaging, just a broad statement, there are comments in the report about flexibility on numerous occasions. And I think we need to have an ordinance that's in place and is to be abided by. Because if too much flexibility is offered, it creates tremendous work for our staff and the Zoning Board of Appeals, in my opinion.

I would agree with both. I agree with, especially, I'm not a fan of the change in children, those type of signs for our community.

I would agree. And I'm going to go back, I'm going to add to your comment, you know, just last year, less than 3%, And I think you said one was denied, correct?

Last year, yes.

So, I mean, I don't see that our ordinance is a big problem.

Right. Okay. Speaking of schools and institutional signs, you know, we've had situations previously with – selling of sponsorship banners um and unfortunately the temporary sign ordinance doesn't allow more than one temporary sign at a time um so i mean is it is there i don't know how we would especially because we it's difficult to single out a specific use like we just discussed is there something where um maybe y'all would be interested in like a special event types on?

I think with schools, I think with schools, they can advertise like, inside their stadiums were seen for their people are in statement it doesn't even projected to the community like outside road frontage and that type of stuff.

So you're comfortable with them, I mean, allowing not.

I mean, so you think that I mean, I go to I'm use River Bluff been like since they got on the scoreboard. They got them by their inside the facility inside the facility and I can speak for other ones by River Bluff. They have like plaques and stuff. It's not just a temporary banner, but it's inside the facility.

Once you enter the facility, I'm sure there are some schools around here, but they'll have like the fences for sports facilities and they'll want to put banners from sponsorships from, I don't know, um, Parker's sponsoring X or Y and they want to put those types of banners on the outside, you know,

out to the public or you got those okay good i i i don't think that's projecting to the to the road frontage most of the ones we've seen well i guess so a lot of our high schools are they're kind of um they're set back and they're on their own premises it's not so for instance if there is a fenced in area that is adjacent to the road

and they attach the sponsorship banners where from the road you only see the white background, but interior inside the fence you can see the message, you are fine with that. You would not consider that a temporary sign because it's not projecting out of the facility. Correct. Okay.

But I think if you're going to do that, we need to regulate the color. Because if you could have a yellow one, a white one, a blue one, that's going to be projecting out.

Well, it's just like at the baseball park. I don't know about the color thing. That's kind of pushing it, I think.

I'm just talking about the back side of it.

The white batten ran all the way across on the roadside. You're not going to see it. Inside, internally...

They can put their message on it.

I think the message, no matter what color it could be.

Yeah. And the fence usually kind of breaks up the color. And I'm talking about basically you can do, if you do that sign, you do the solid white. But on the interior of it, they can put their. Yeah. Okay.

This is a white canvas, isn't it? They put it up.

Okay. these are the types of special kind of questions that staff gets that we wanted to get some guidance on and unfortunately you know again we'll have to add that to the ordinance so then there's no question like right no this is it there's no the staff doesn't have to go back and forth and try to figure it out we've gotten guidance from the planning commission and there's no room for different interpretation it's clear a clear ordinance is an easy ordinance to enforce from staff perspective so this is very helpful okay the digital thing is a great question yeah when we talked about shopping center signage and those I think we got clear. Are you, I think y'all comfortable with the current ordinance and how it addresses shopping centers. I think some of the situations that have been brought up or like corner lots or specific ones where if they define them as a commercial center, then the limitations go in. But if it's a corner lot, then they get more signage because it's a corner. And again, those are special situations where it's kind of, you could try to put something in the ordinance about corner lots, but it's not going to happen that often.

The only thing that whenever I think of a corner lot that may be worth considering is should you have a separation distance between, so you're allowed one monument sign per road frontage for a shopping center, but should you have a separation distance between, for corner lots, between where each of those monument signs are allowed to be placed? That way you're not having... then right back to back. Does that make sense?

Could we do on a corner, could you do like on the main thoroughfare, do the monument sign, the center sign, but on the secondary road, do a smaller... version of a sign. So you don't have at a corner you're looking at two signs the same style and they're within.

They'd actually hinder their own advertisement because you couldn't see the second sign potentially.

Almost treat it like you treat the yard setbacks. You determine which one's the front and then which one's the side and that's how you and they get to determine what their primary and what their secondary is. The primary gets X, the secondary gets Y and

right that's yeah okay yeah i like that thank you i think charleston does that sometimes i know in 17 they have a large monument sign then on the side road they have a second second mount pleasant excuse me we talked about temporary signs and duration most people responded with 15 days to 30 days

out of time which is similar i know that the small business advisory board mentioned um having an allotment once per quarter um right now the way that it's written they get kind of get to choose but if they really wanted to they could have a sign three times a year um is that something you're interested in changing or saying x number of days per quarter or

So right now they get up to 60 days.

60 calendar days per year. New businesses get an additional 30. They have to be permitted in minimum increments of 20 days at a time. And the reason being is that is to prevent people from coming in and nitpicking because it takes staff time to issue that permit and saying, I want a permit for two days. It's to avoid that nitpicking, so 20 days at a time is...

I think what we have to find out, because technically, in theory, they could do one per quarter. They could break it down 15 days per quarter.

So right now it's a minimum.

Or 20, excuse me, so three, I guess.

Yeah, so if you would like, we can change that.

They would lose five days, but they could have once per quarter, I guess.

Yeah, 15 days per quarter.

I mean, I don't know. Make it simple. Is that easy for staff to do, 15 versus 20?

I mean, yeah.

So is that what they were requesting?

Most respondents said 15 days to 30 days.

We're at 20 now, so that's between 15 and 30. But then some said they wanted one per quarter. I think the easy solution would be 15 days.

15 days per quarter.

If they don't use it, they don't use it.

Do you want to continue to allow new businesses to have the additional 30 days for their grand opening?

I think so. I don't want to speak for the commission, but I'm going to say 15 versus 20.

They're new and they're trying to get people to their business.

Do we have fines for these people to put out these... Rachel House.

If we can get a hold of them, yes, I will tell you they do. Yeah, it's very I will sign code enforcement. I wish I had my code enforcement officer here. He comes in a lot of times on Saturdays and Sundays. And he gets in early and he will drive through town about 6 a.m. on a Saturday. And then he does one big loop and then on his way back through, he will pick up anywhere for 15 to 20 signs where they've hit an area after he's already drove through. And so I know, especially during political season, we have a lot of the little snipe signs that it's not unusual for him to tell me that he's picked up 50 of those signs. one day um and they're immediately back out and that they're immediately back out well do we find them uh if we can get a hold of them yes so the political ones we we generally contact the campaign manager um and have a discussion and let them know where they can and cannot put them um and if they're the larger political signs and they're in the right of way just by error um we they work with us and actually come and move those because they're difficult to get moved um so political signs are a little bit easier because we have a contact but some of these others that are just fly-by-night businesses yeah they're hard they're hard to to get a hold of them or to find a real address because you have to write that ticket to someone so actually getting a person is difficult if we catch them in the act then yes they get a ticket

I know we've been talking about commercial signs. Where do residential monument signage, do they fall under this same ordinance?

They do. So a subdivision, hold on, I have to pull it up. We don't get those a ton, but there are ordinances in there for the subdivision signs and they are on page, 13, section 1590602. So it says that they're allowed one sign permitted along each street frontage. They are not to exceed 50 square feet. They cannot exceed four foot in height if located within a required setback or six feet if located elsewhere. The height restriction does not apply to gateway structures to residential developments exceeding 10 acres in total signs. Total size, sorry. So depending on the zoning district would determine the setback, most of these are gonna be in the RDD district, which is a 10 foot setback. And so whenever it's referencing, if it's outside or inside of the 10 foot setback for the height, That's what it's referencing.

And what's the maximum height on a commercial center sign?

On all signs, maximum height is 10 foot. Except for residential.

Right.

So commercial is 10 foot.

Okay.

Are we fine with the residential the way it is?

Yeah, I was asked about that in...

pretty extensive height i thought for a residential sign of 20 feet oh i know what you're talking about yes that has been discussed with that developer um that is a one-off i don't get that often i will tell you a lot of developers don't think they need to get a permit so we catch them as they have their brick masons out there so it's just that that's just a tricky one um But we try to catch them. Our building inspectors know to keep an eye out when they're doing home inspections.

I mean, I was just curious. I didn't know what it was.

Yeah.

All right. We are being inundated by the police out the doors.

That's fine. It's okay. They said last time we had discussion, because we had a similar issue, they said that they will wait on us. So we're okay.

Oh, okay.

We haven't talked to you. Yeah.

You want to stay?

Okay.

Were there any other issues with the sign orders that you wanted us to discuss that weren't, you know, that we didn't get feedback from stakeholders or that we haven't discussed here?

I think we've covered about everything. I was surprised that There was not a lot. We do hear complaints from the citizens, but there was not more citizen input than business input. During that time period.

As a reminder, Jessica, how many emails did you guys send out to people and how much public notice did you give? Because it was a lot.

So we gave two weeks of public notice on the meetings. We shared them on social media. We sent them out to all HOA contacts that we had on file through our community action team. We send them all to boards and commissions. And then we emailed out an invitation to all signed contractors that have pulled a permit in the past two years. We also sent an email out to all business licenses that had an email account on file with us. And then we also shared it with what we call our listserv. So it's in-town residents that have an email address attached to their utility account. That was rough, it was a large number. And so, and we had a pretty good open rate on those emails, so we did a lot of outreach and then after the stakeholder meetings on March 30th, we ran a public survey on our website and on social media for two weeks.

Okay. People usually only comment when they're angry. 80 people go, it's great, I love it.

I would agree. I mean, usually when they're upset about something, that's when you hear.

We'll refer them all to Jarrett in the future.

Yeah, I do commend you. Obviously there are some members of your community that wanted you to look at this and I feel like staff did a really good job of trying to get it out to everybody and everyone had the opportunity to make those changes. We'll go back and work on these changes and bring it back to you and then obviously that's a public Public also, they can come and make comments about the changes that were suggested.

Well, we do have a very good staff that helps us. We're as good as they are, and they're pretty good. I think Councilman Lyle back there would agree with me on that statement.

All right.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to thank Ms. Vance for her work putting this together and for being here this morning and also compliment Jessica on all her efforts and due diligence always keep us well informed and we appreciate your help.

Thank you. All right.

Likewise. Anybody else? If I don't hear any objection, we are adjourned. Thank you for watching the town election and planning commission. Commission members are unable to engage in any outside communication regarding agenda items. If you have additional questions following the meeting, please contact the municipal clerk. Thank you for watching the town election and planning commission. On behalf of the town and staff, I wish you a good day.