Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Are we streaming? Not quite yet. Okay. Okay, we are live. Okay. All right, I will call to order this Thursday, July 19th, 2026 meeting of the Moab City Planning Commission at 6.05 p.m. In attendance today, we have Associate Planner Johanna Blanco, our new Junior Planner. Katelyn Boyer, Katelyn Pointer, nice to meet you. Welcome. Kelsey Garcia, Corey Shurtleff is in the audience. We have planning commissioners Jill Tatton, myself, Kaya Marienfeld, and Carolyn Conant is attending virtually. We also have our city council liaison, Miles Lofton, attending virtually as well. First item of business, citizens to be heard. We did not have anyone here in chambers or receive anything for citizens to be heard, but we did receive an email with regard to our workshop later on, which we can discuss at the time. Moving right along, approval of minutes. We have minutes from our last meeting, which was a little under a month ago, back on June 11th. If Carolyn, Jill had time to review those minutes, we could entertain a motion.

I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve the minutes for the June 11th, 2026 meeting. Great.

I can second.

All right, a second. Sorry, a motion from Jill, a second from Carolyn. All those in favor of approving our minutes from our June 11th meeting, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, minutes approved, 3-0. Moving right along to the meat of our agenda today, our discussion item, which is item 4.1, a workshop to discuss amendments to the Moab Municipal Code section for signs. Johanna?

Yeah. So before we get into our discussion, I have a small presentation to get us teed up. Okay, so what we have right now and what was in your packet is my red lines of the code. These are the goals that I had in mind when amending this code. Other departments will be weighing in as well as yours for our final. So my goals are simplifying the language so that it's easier for basic people to read. deleting code that necessitates that regulators read in order to find out what category of code that they fit into and which rules would apply to them. And then bringing the code up to what we currently do. There are some code sections that we just don't really have capacity for. So I've got some examples of each of these goals. So simplification, this, I just received an updated version of this from our code enforcement, Mona, and she's got even better language, easier to read. So we'll be updating the height and size limitation calculation sentences so that they are as clear as possible. Another example down below is intervals of change for, this was to prevent intermittent blinking on signs. And right now we have, you can change the face of a sign every 12 hours. That became an issue for our gas stations as they'd like to be able to change the price of gas more frequently than 12 hours. So settled on two, we can discuss further, but something more in the range of acceptable. And then the freestanding signs per lot used to have a calculation attached. I put forward that we should just make it a simple number for everybody. I put forward two, we can discuss further. Um, some examples of deleting the code that you need to read, um, getting rid of sections, especially in the residential zone about no advertising and then special, um, regulations just for political science. Uh, we want to be respectful of, uh, people's right to free speech. Um, And then bring the code up to date with current practices. We currently don't really do temporary signs. Anybody who comes in with a temporary sign gets a full-blown permit and rights to that sign, as well as abandoned signs, code enforcement. We don't... What is... We don't really do that one. And then exempt signs. I have been interpreting this section as one open sign could be incidental to the lawful use of occupying a property. So I'd like to just put that in the code clear. So our timeline for this is going to be take your guys' comments, take all of our department's comments, redo, and then we may bring it back or we may just lump it in with the overall big code rewrite. This is not like our vendor code rewrite, which is going to be an accelerated separate code amendment. This is always going to be just with our big draft.

I have a question on the time changing every two hours. How does that fit in with Like the high school's marquee.

Yeah.

The high school's marquee. Changing like every 30 seconds. And then HMK is getting a new one as well. The middle school has one. They change, I don't know, every 30 seconds or something like that. How does that fall in there? It's school property.

So it doesn't, yeah, it supersedes like local regulations.

Okay. If someone else was to have that same sign, that would not be allowed under our code.

All right. At least we know gas will stay constant for two hours. And nobody else has a sign like that, right? Like a liquor store doesn't have a name. They don't have a marquee kind of sign. I can't remember if anybody else does. Yes. Yes. Are you asking her?

No, I'm kidding.

This is Corey Schertz, community development director. And I'll be kind of popping in and out, I think, in this context. So I might come up and just sit for the body of this, but that's how it's going to kind of feel. So a little background with that. I think historically in our community, there was... I don't know exactly the exact time frame, but a decade or more ago, there was when intermittent flashing signs or basically LED signs became really popular. There was a call to action to reduce that type of visual element for advertising. And when that happened... It just outright banned. However, advances in technology have also, through our outdoor lighting ordinance and other sophistications, kind of opened the door where maybe we do want to revisit that. But yeah, as far as the properties that are exempt from local ordinance to a certain degree, School district properties, for instance, can. But as far as fuel price signs, was also an exception made to this very specifically just for fuel price signs. So this is where getting to, I think, what Johanna mentioned about non-distinguishing regulations per sign can get kind of tricky. That we're going to, I think, classify fuel price signs as a particular type of sign that is not advertising that as a type of signage. And then maybe can allow that to be a little bit more flexible.

Yeah.

However, we have to, I think just my only, why I popped up here, what other types of signs are there? There's a lot of interests, particularly in the state, maybe even in our community, where the, once that door is opened, it's going to be very difficult to close it for everyone. So I think I just caution and recommend limiting that to what would be kind of, cases of essential element and this is where you know it's essential to us that they know coffee's you know on sale right now um not really that's not really essential i think the argument for fuel signs i'm still could think we could argue against that um but you know with standard price fuel signs of the past there was an actual material they were changing those very infrequently. But the competition metric that we're being proposed, like we need to know every minute of every day, maybe somewhere in the middle. The purpose, I will just say behind it, is to prevent the intermittent flashing as an attractive element. So if it's changing every two hours, that change isn't going to catch passerbys. So whatever it is you end up thinking that signs might qualify to that, think of it as that nature of very, very distant intermittent changes.

Yeah. I can't think of anybody that has a sign that's like that.

No. I mean, there's... We could probably unpack it, but real estate has kind of, they've approached and wanting to, there's a lot of signs that want to do that. We've kept that at bay because it doesn't, I think, meet that essential need that maybe like fuel price did at the time where they got that concession. Yeah, it's worth thinking about. And even, you know, as technology increases, not just in how it's displayed, but the ability to regulate lumen, can help maybe with that a little bit. I might just sit up here for a little longer, see where we land.

Okay. If we have any other, anyways, if you have any big questions about what I just presented, otherwise you guys can continue your discussion or I can present if you need it.

Yeah, I think we should address the email that we got from a Moab citizen who also happens to be a former planning commissioner and a former city council member, Kaylin Jones. Had a really excellent email in regards to the workshop this evening. I am not going to read the whole thing just because it was pretty detailed, but that should be in the record for the meeting. It will be with the minutes and everything. essentially the primary recommendation was relying more heavily on the existing outdoor lighting ordinance of course that the city has in place rather than duplicating or changing using the existing code provisions that we already have and then just cross-referencing where relevant I think would help cut down on wordiness maybe and then also if there's things like we already have lumens we already have hours. We already have all of that. So he said, rather than redefining terms like light source shielded or light output, consider simply stating that lighting technology is governed by chapter 17.09. So it keeps all the technical definitions in one place and avoids future inconsistencies and Use the shielding standards from the lighting ordinance, which already requires fully shielded fixtures. So in a way that's more technically precise than the wording currently proposed in the sign draft, which I think to me makes sense. And then again, would avoid maintaining two slightly different sets of requirements. Addressing consistency in lighting hours. reference the temperature color requirement, though, in the sign code. So what the MOLO has, the lighting ordinance says the 3,000 K color temperature requirement, that would stand, but then actually have that somewhere in the sign code. So he says mentioning it in the sign code would make applicants aware of the requirement without having to read both chapters. Consider adding maximum sign luminance. While the lighting ordinance regulates total light output for a property, it doesn't prevent a property owner from allocating a large share of that light budget to a single sign. I think that's an important oversight that we should make sure if that's the case. I haven't had time to go through.

Is that correct? I thought our most recent revision of the Moab Outdoor Lighting Ordinance actually did do that. And there was a concession with Dark Skies that we must regulate signs. And it's all looking to a deeper, but rather than nits as a particular reflective reading of a sign, we said lumens shall be the factor. But maybe we didn't regulate per sign enough.

yeah and that's the the redaction that may be on the cutting floor of the council it may have i don't remember specifically look at it um or maybe that was something with coming consistency with the county could have been too because there were the parallel ordinances that ended up kind of needing to be the same or close um also consider reducing the lumen limit And then something about the prescriptive fixture location requirement. Consider softening that. understanding that there are specific constraints of properties and many small businesses might have a lighting designer to help with their lighting plan, which I think is nice. If we have a reason to care about the location specifically to a level of specificity, but if not, I can see that being something that could be maybe a little more squishy. um and then just compliment his he's complimentary of um great provisions uh currently in the draft um just noting that it's an excellent draft and a great step forward um basically just saying suggestions are mostly about making the sign code work seamlessly with the outdoor lighting ordinance so there's one consistent set of technical standards rather than two overlapping ones so that makes sense to me um yeah Great input. Thanks, Kalen, for saying many things that I would have said.

If I may, I think the commentary to that as a whole, I would agree with that. As far as functionality of the alignment, I think we were already intending to do that. I think the current frame in the code made that very clunky. We actually had negotiated... There's elements of MOLO that were integrated in multiple sections, but it was adopted as an ordinance. So with this new rewrite, we are going to, you know, development standards will live all together in a place. So I think we'll uniformly address that, not just with signs or lighting. That's how we'll handle everything. What I will say with this ordinance is, is we may decouple, in my opinion, the lighting elements from the signage elements and that MOLO is kind of on its own track with amortization and what the council's current temperature is with that ordinance of its own unencumbering signage, which is kind of more content, square footage. kind of really that character element that we're trying to pull into signs.

So either cross-referencing to existing standards or pulling those standards where they're sign specific out of the lighting ordinance?

Yes. And there will no longer be a lighting ordinance per se. But that's not entirely true. There will be the way it's housed will be more effective because right now we have the way our code structure is just it's a it's a functional issue with our new framing it will be resolved i think something that kaylin pointed out and that you've read is the idea of detaching illumination that it is molo and that all illumination whether it's signage or not is handled through that lighting section that will be how we do it i think that's very wise okay to get dark sky certification they wanted it bundled so there was some conflation that was happening Now that we're there, I think we can decouple where it's appropriate. But that's really great content.

Yeah, just to give you a general note, and I have not had a chance to go through and compare the two, but the lighting ordinance was something that was worked on by technical experts for quite a long time and where there is a technical definition read about the wheel i think um reference to that i would say it's recent enough and it did have such broad community and staff and and consultant input too so anything to make y'all's lives easier i'd hopefully if cameron's watching which i assume he will last comment is the city actually gave a presentation at the uh

APA American planning association conference this past spring on dark sky lighting as a kind of a, we, we partnered with IDA to get, so we were kind of speaking from a place of like, Hey, we know how, and it went really well. So he's, I think the founding father of that momentum.

So just knowing the founding father of that. Yes.

It's all, you know, come very full circle. So cool. A little tidbit for Caitlin.

Awesome. Awesome. All right. Great. I mean, I think those are all great comments. Johanna, would you mind pulling up the slide with the red lines again? Absolutely.

I can also go to the red line document. Did you have one? I like the slides.

Just read it better. I have it here too.

While Johanna's pulling up, I think the only other comment I wanted to kind of throw in there was regarding temporary signs. This is continually confusing for the public. There's an idea of temporary by material and temporary by nature of its posting. And people often confuse it. Oh, it's a banner. Yeah, but your banner's up 24-7, 365. It's a permanent sign using a temporary material versus whatever type of material, but it was you know, meant to create some flexibility to allow people to have basically a sign that they didn't have to pay for, but it did need an entire sign permit of its own. They didn't pay for it, but then it was basically regulated at 30 day intervals to sale. Now, Oh, you know, now hiring stuff like that without having to actually, um, get into some of, and that's where the temporary sign versus exempt sign of temporary signs gets a little odd. So that's just one of the confusing areas that when we're going to start redlining it. Yeah. Just a heads up.

I like that.

That makes sense. Yeah, I think this, so for example, this edit makes a lot of sense. Get rid of Anything about what it says, it's about where it is and what it's functionally doing physically in space.

So there's federal case law that is kind of at the foremost of our thought process with this, but then there's also the state legislature this past session added to that where the narrative here is we can regulate all signs almost everywhere except for political signs. which is the new state thing. That being said, we can't distinguish between typology or reading the sign to determine what type of sign it is. That really closes some doors of flexibility for folks actually, in my opinion, because we will have to lower our, or we will have to constrict our regulations to the lowest common denominator. Like it's just an open sign. Yeah. But we have to treat it as if it is any other sign. So it's actually going to limit our ability to be flexible to ensure that everyone is protected and mitigated appropriately. But you know, any sign in the right of way, it doesn't matter what it is. It can only be this big and you know, blah, blah, blah. So that's where I think a lot of this content will drive to with this type of redaction, but then we're going to have to tighten up some of our additional regs to sort out that vacuum it's creating.

Yeah, the whole residential zone, we've been having a few issues. with people who have businesses, but they're in the residential zone and then can only have very, very small signs. So now as currently drafted, I've written that if you have a general business license, you'd follow the applicable regulations for everybody for calculation. And then if you don't have a business license, you can have your But they have to be four square feet or smaller, which fits our normal residential signs, whether that be political or otherwise for sale, something like that.

It's a perfect example of what we're saying. We can't say residential marquee signs. We have to say you get four square feet. That means, though, we are getting into territory if people can have a four-foot sign and it can just say Steph. So we're going to have to be aware in the community that there are limitations on types of people.

I've seen some really fun ones out in UAB County.

It's a good one. It's about yeah i you know this is where folks yeah with with you know the character amount which is what this is i think one of all the code discussions we're going to have i think signage ultimately is a weird one where it's like it's really we want the commission to really drive where you want yeah the community to go with this that's going to be a character quality people are gonna be like i don't want signs everywhere yeah well i think in this case we're kind of limits to what either have to allow all things or not at all. They can say no signs in residential districts. Yeah.

Sounds like you should be in an HOA. If you want to regulate signs on your neighbor's property. That's kind of it. But other provisions of the code apply is the thing. Lighting applies to signs. You cannot have an illuminated sign yelling about your neighbor. You can have a non-illuminated sign that is not within your setback and also doesn't block the view of X, Y, and Z.

Some other things governing it in. Yeah, there's some speeches regulated and also directional or what I'll kind of call it imposter signs. We've seen that like no parking here. That's not a public sign, yet you're a bit of an imposter of giving direction to the public that you don't have the authority. So I think we can regulate those things to a degree.

Yeah. Next slide. So temporary signs.

Mm-hmm.

Nothing regulates a truly temporary sign with temporary materials. Like, say, for example, someone puts up a sign on their business that's like a banner that says, like, something sailed today or for a certain event. Like, think they have one but like on the mark for the soup bowl fundraiser there i think there's a banner there's a banner that's put outside there's a sandwich board um things like that like what covered sandwich board signs my memory check me it's been a little bit since it's been signed world i

Is that I think my memory of the intent here is that under a certain square footage, and that's the kicker. So temporary signs that are exempt are under a certain square footage. You still have to go through a certain process to determine your threshold of time that it is indeed a temporary thing. But under a certain square footage, which I think was six more in there. You can put up a temporary sign just letting us know when you put it up so we know when it would be appropriate for you to have taken it down. That is not added into the square footage of your budget for your property. You have a lot more freedom with that. If it's over six square feet or it is to remain longer than 30 days, it is a permanent sign, even though it's up with temporary nature or even a temporary message, but that it's part of your side package.

So what happens with sandwich boards or outside businesses on Main Street during open hours?

What was that? How close was that? Am I preaching nonsense?

Yes. I can read the definition of temporary sign. Which we don't have anymore. Right? Right.

What we do, this is a proposed. I think Johanna said we will delete this. So as of the moment, I think it exists.

While she's looking that up. So like business puts out sandwich board. Like every day. Every day.

Yep.

During business hours brings it in at night. Where does that fall?

No man's land. Yeah. In a weird way in that they're sandwiched. They're kind of... An extension of what we determined to be like customary open signs.

Yeah.

Again, we were regulating content. If it just says open sandwich board, yeah go ahead and put it out there it's temporary like the sale card of books in front of beck and beyond or like a rack and a rack of clothing and those are kind of if mona were here she'd be all over this too those are those are kind of relating signs in the same way temporary displays which is a different type of regulation yeah or work which is basically open closed movement and they can live in the public realm because that's not their property typically that is udot's or the city's property but that's okay if it became a fixed or it was giving out additional content that was beyond what the exemption category for open sign was, that's what we said. That's one of your sign packages, just add it to your package. Uh, and then you're fully entitled to it in that kind of temporary way.

But you have a mind like a steel trap. The, uh, The exempt temporary sign right now is temporary signs not associated with businesses may be displayed not more than 30 days per year or exceed six square feet in size. Size examples include garage sales, puppy for sale, agricultural produce sales. So... And then there's a different temporary sign whole category. So this one that I just read the definition for would still be exempt, not trying to get your puppies for sale sign permit. But the other one that we've been just talking about doesn't really fit.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And I think now that we can't regulate content, I think it makes sense that kills this area. These people would have, they've maximized their signage, built signage on there. But they want a big, big now hiring sign or a series of open signs, which in my opinion, commentary here, I think we get it. You don't need 12 open signs. Okay, that's my own personal comment on that. But okay, whatever it is to make your business thrive, that's what you want. But they would argue it's of a temporary material. Why is it a sign? It's like, if you use that argument, which in the planning staff, we try to formulate how regulations work. If you use those variables and let it run away, if it's infinite, then you're just covering everything in that using that definition. It's a non-functional regulation. So you have to cap it. And that's what this is saying. We can't give you that freebie of the temporary signs anymore because we can't regulate content. So it's just going to have to be a regular sign or a puppy sign. Those are the two. Those are the options.

Yeah.

No. What? Okay.

cut one before we move on with the open the exact you get one exempt open sign that's about two square feet what we've seen in town and this is again we have these technology waves that happen with carports it happens with kind of weird things where there's just somebody's making great profit in our communities everyone gets awesome as i'm sure we've all seen it is there's these led illuminated open signs and they're all the same but they can be programmed or they have American flag or whatever. Those dabble into intermittent flashing a little bit. Unfortunately, you can do that. Some of them can just stay steady. That's fine. But this is crossing over to, I think, Kaylin's commentary. Okay, that's an open sign. It's exempt, but it's actually producing exterior illumination with those illumination source bulbs. So it could be a direct illumination issue, but they've just been rampantly installed in our community. That's not to say they were legally installed. I know almost for a fact none of them have been. But what do we do with that? We have something that has run away in our community there. It's not saying we have to legalize it, but if we enter into a code that is making that a nonconforming element or a legal infraction, we're up into a kind of weird place where everyone's got one. Do we still want to make it not a thing? Food for thought with that one. Maybe keep moving, but back to your brain. Think about some of these things.

Makes sense. Yeah. Makes sense to me.

Um, I'll just make a note on most of my red lines. Um, I've just tried to keep the code as similar to the way it is as possible. Um, but make things more clear. Um, so if we want to talk about, uh, adjusting the calculations, I could give my opinion on that, but I haven't inserted my opinion in this to keep it open.

Yeah.

I think that on-highway and off-highway could be the same. Generally. I think it could be the same.

Moving to the lower standard.

The process increased, I think, right? Sorry, what? You've made it so that everyone gets on-highway

Not in this draft. No, I've kept it as times two for the highway and regular, just your frontage. And I think there could be somewhere in the middle. I think it is good. complicated for people that have a corner lot on the highway because their frontage on the highway is times two and their frontage on the side road is one, which isn't too complicated. But if we're looking for people to fill out an application by themselves, that's just one pretty pivotal a step that's going to impact their whole design where if they can't figure out their frontage, that's a little bit of an issue that could be remedied by some sort of example on the application, or we could think about making it one for everybody.

Okay.

We do have a max for the sign face. So that's another control if we're worried about giving too much square footage that the signs are going to grow. We can control it through that.

So this is we've put a strikethrough on subsection C and then now section A. This is just saying they get two square foot of sign for each linear foot. And that was the standing code as opposed to one square foot per one linear foot.

Yeah, I'm only showing one right now. So this is just on highway. And then there's another paragraph that's exactly the same. And it says off-highway?

I see. Sorry, the title is not completely there. Section 1 is the prevailing section of this. So the height limitations on property that has frontage along highway. And that's meant to carry through as... Oh, no. Right there. Section 2. I see it. Sorry. I'm blind. I'm with you. I got you. So it is one square foot still on non-highway fronting public roads. Correct. Yeah, that's historically been a really challenging thing for the public to grapple with. And it's kind of, as our commercial districts have evolved, people have been really curious, like, why? Because it used to be that we want to give you tons of advertising towards the highway, thinking, you know, old Route 66 style. But as you get into off-highway, like, let's damp it down a little bit. Our commercial districts are a little bit more integrated off the highway itself.

So

people are feeling you know this drive to I want highway for a lot of reasons people still you know the the value of highway confronting dirt is so much greater because that exposure but if we're looking to have you know commercial development try to be a little more balanced off just the highway strip which with UDOT's jurisdiction has kind of been tough This might be a little nugget to say, hey, you get just as much as those guys. Not a bad thought.

I don't know. That would be one where I'd want to be curious what city council had to say about them.

These are all very character rich. How do we want our community? If everyone did this, how would it really look? For sure. Small town, small town.

character designs really special yeah all right next that's all that i have on my presentation we can switch over to the full document cool okay

Yeah, I wonder in keeping with kind of those last few comments that just came up, the very early red line in the sign code under the sort of bullets behind the purpose of the sign ordinance, a lot of them were scratched out. And I feel like the sort of reduced bullets that remain maybe don't capture all of these balancing elements that we've been discussing and trying to, you know, balance different values and use cases for signs. So now how others feel about how it currently looks with the red lines or whether we feel like that's kind of encompassing of the why behind the code or if there's other things that we might wanna include in there.

That's a great comment. As Jeff was saying, I think a lot of the code that we're going to be bringing before you is going to be really trying to tighten up to administrative, just very tight, limiting the discretionary nature of code. There are admittedly within the health, safety, and common welfare arenas, the common welfare side of things, That's where we find our character is in there. And then within that, there's an area that is arbitrary zoning. It is that HOA style. We want to look this way. But that's so important, I think, for communities to still have. So while I think this practice of we're going to be kind of stripping this over-indulged purpose and narrative statement on a lot of our regulations, this and maybe a few others are ones where like, yeah, maybe it is important to really propel kind of the whereas type information codified into the code in that initial statement. So not a great comment, Carolyn. Really good comment. I would recommend, though, if we are going to keep something, take a really good, thoughtful, meditate on it. And really bring this out of the 1970s, which is when a lot of this was probably really being mostly developed, if not earlier, to say, hey, how do we contemporarily feel about this 50 years later?

Yeah, I mean, to me, based on the kind of proposed edits, it seems like the current aim or priorities are balancing sort of like business access to promoting services, goods and services with the type of downtown or city aesthetic that we're going for. And I would almost strike out that the first one about traffic and pedestrian safety, because traffic signs and things like that are exempted under this code, right? And not covered by the provisions. So that seems kind of irrelevant.

Yeah.

I think the purpose of that one was we don't want you just distracted by the flashing lights or the or something.

And UDOT supports that. They have their own concerns about signage being an actual distraction to drivers and safety.

So what kind of like specific sort of decisive feedback are you seeking? Um, I sort of general discussion.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. This is going to be a few rounds, I assume. So this can be like some of our other feedback sessions where if today's just a primer and we go through and then we come back and have more detailed notes, that works fantastic. This can be just work time if we need.

I think it kind of, well, we have another discussion we might kind of slip in here too. It's of the state nature. But, you know, this idea of, we kind of talked like, I think we're starting to kind of hit to it is like, well, should Main Street have that much and should have Off Street have that little? Those are the comments that like, We can produce material that can make that goal happen. But what is it? Maybe we start with something a little further away, maybe even to the extent of saying, here's a community that I see and I envision that us growing into that community or even here's me and we don't want to be that. Let me throw one on the table. We don't want to be, you know, Las Vegas. Boulevard like that's obviously. But then there's other communities that, especially in southern Utah, that are kind of grappling with, they're trying to hold on to this small town, rural feel. But businesses are like, I need to be able to, people are moving through at 50 miles per hour. I need to be able to tell them that I'm here. Yeah. versus having a two-square-foot sign of, hey, we're open. Come on in. Ice cream's good. So it's really an economic slash community development question, where we see ourselves going. And this is how businesses will use us as a tool to get us there. So I think illumination is a huge part of this, obviously. But I do want to decouple it as much as we can right now. Let that be a different discussion. So like my mind was like, do we want neon signs? Our community kind of went through some small blips of neon where it was like, maybe that's going to be our thing. It's kind of like not Las Vegas neon, but like neon's going to, maybe it's going to be our thing. And yeah, how do we move towards that? That's a bit of elimination, but you know, we have a sign, you know, a business owner came in and said, I want to be able to do this big marquee thing right in the mainstream. We had to amend the code and make that happen. Now we've had that as an example. Do we like that? Do we want to keep going with those types of elements? Or are we like, let's get rid of roof signs altogether type of a question?

Yeah, we can skip to some hot topics we'd like.

Yeah, these are the big ones, I think.

Yeah, size and height, if we could. Nudelon, if you guys have any.

prompting questions that'll help you think in the meantime one way it was put is and this was the one of the people that is actually a business owner they were on planning commission when part of this if i think probably the more contemporary version of our sign call is written they wrote it there was obviously a base level before that but they really had a vision of very standardized every business gets the same exact square footage they're all the same and you come in and it is a very form-based look kind of unified as a community so nobody's getting disproportional advertising because they have a big lot it's just everything's the same and they like that attempts since then that business owners had a little bit of change of heart because the world we can use changed a little bit around them um So that's a question. Do we see that consolidation? No, everyone gets three signs. You get an open sign, a pole sign, and a wall sign. And they're all the same. That would make your job probably a lot easier. But is Moab's eclectic nature something we're going to lean into here? Is it something we're going to kind of maybe gear back to the mid-century, let's be a unified community trying to pull tourism in one direction?

Corian, are you saying the way it's currently written in the red lines is still promoting that uniformity or has the space for the eclectic nature?

I think currently as red line, it's still eclectic. Everybody is different calculations, according to

where they are, how big they are. That's the way the code is currently and I think we're carrying that through with this red line. It was more of a commentary that was brought up that I pondered on when that person came through. That's what community could envision. There's a lot of pros and cons in each side of that, of course.

Right.

A lot of creativity could come. Sure. Sure.

Okay.

Um, projecting into suspended signs is mostly safety. Gotta be above the sidewalk enough for our tallest person to walk underneath. And gotta have proof of liability insurance. Um, I erased the maximum of 28 feet because the maximum of 28 feet is for everyone. Roof signs. I could certainly get a history lesson on what happened. Because currently, I don't know how making it a freestanding sign, what the Advent Tejas property was there. Yeah.

This was a one-off.

I remember it.

Yes.

Yeah. It's within their total height allowance for the building itself.

Yeah. It's basically saying that single-story buildings have a disadvantage. So they were saying, well, can I put a roof sign on that isn't limited to four feet above the roof deck?

Oh, okay.

Gotcha. Yeah. So, you know, said that example I've maybe been working off was the one that came in and was a switch. Again, it was, I think it was a very one-off custom way that we're like, this is benign to us. It is not a probably premier example of standardization of code. So this is something we could...

If we wanted to standardize, we could get rid of the four feet.

Yes, exactly.

And no matter where you are, we don't even really have to have a roof sign category. It's just signs. Right, signs.

I think that would be an appropriate avenue to chase, in my opinion.

Yeah. Unless we want to close that loop, but okay. Intermediate flashing the lights. I don't know if we want to talk about lighting anymore right now.

This one's more of a performance element or standard of operation type commentary than the light itself. And this is actually, we were recommended legally to install this five years, six years ago that they, when again, technology was increased, there was a big boom, particularly in the Wasatch Front where the billboard lobby was about to... proposed, and I think maybe even did install, so we had to preempt them by getting something on the books that would have preempted them from getting in first. With these LED signs, basically big movie screens, and this, the intermittent, that's the language we were trying to handle here. We had something already, so this, it was the EVMS is what I think we are, an LED, that's that subsection C, I think, and D, that we added the intermittent change that was already existing from you know one person wanted to ticker on the main street but that was new and that was kind of groundbreaking they didn't want the ticker there um now we can know it's so different do we even care about that anymore is a good question but what i will say is if we do care 12 hours was a concession because it was just none, no changing, period. And people are like, that's, then what's the point? We're like, kind of, that's kind of the point. We're going to make it redundant to death. So if we've opened up for changing, what it becomes now is a operational compliance issue to us. So if you make it that it's a certain interval of time, we'll have to have somebody out there to stopwatch watching to ensure it's being regulated appropriately. Or if the public makes a claim that it isn't, now we have to go through that process. So not making it so close, I guess, that we have to go through this. I would recommend two hours, I think, is reasonable. That's pretty, you know, it's still a challenging thing to regulate. But if we go out and we see something doing that, it's clear it's intermittent. But if you see a little blip and you don't see anything for a little bit, you're like, okay, maybe that was the one change for the day or a couple hours. The whole point was people didn't want it to be distracting and kind of aesthetically ugly. I heard that. That was the quote-unquote aesthetically ugly. I don't know. So this is a good one for you guys to chew on for sure. not from lighting, but again, from an operational question.

Cool.

Okay. E has been erased because we have other code about light trespass.

Okay.

Now I have a whole new reframe of mind and I'm going to really redo this section. I think there was a little bit of contradiction in kaylin's comment that i'd love to get your guys's input on i think some stated we'd like to reference back to molo and some stated we'd like for you to put it in the code so it's easier it's once again the temperature i want temperature in but i don't want other stuff yeah i think just saying temperature was it seemed like that was the recommendation like

Don't be duplicative wherever you don't need to be. Make sure it's just wherever, whether it's in its own lighting ordinance, whatever it ends up being, just have it all be housed in one place, not duplicated, whatever the format ends up being in the new code revision. But have the temp that do actually have that one specific thing in there for very easy early reference, lest it be something that's missed too far down the line.

I may tease that back out into the side. I may comb that back over. It would be my recommendation.

We'll have it in both would be what the recommendation was.

And I don't think we'll probably, in the context of the new code, I think what the KLM is saying is like under the code we are here, there's two totally different areas. In the new code, that won't be the case. It will be a unified section.

So I'm going to skim here and see if there's anything that doesn't meet MOLO or is...

could use your input that's not just going to be here's one to throw at you yeah for that it's kind of illumination adjacent so and that it was actually came up kai you might remember this i was i was trying to remember if i was on planning commission for this one I think it was a fresh staff person. We have them right now where there are, in real estate offices, a trend is they have these illuminated pallets. They're not exactly like computer pads. It's this kind of pallet, we'll call it. It's an illuminated sheet that sits right at the window and illuminates outward. Now, it's not an exterior illumination fixture. nor is it on the exterior of the structure and then applied after the fact interior yet the entirety of its illumination is directed outward and not you know shielded and they're out there right now and i think at the dais at the time we said no those are not compliant yet many of them still exist and they come and go type of thing so this is where signage if just a universally is signage is the interior to the structure and you're looking through a window. Do we care? We've seen this with the beer signs, open signs. All of these typically are illuminated as well. So we can have that kind of like, let's talk about the signage itself first and then we can talk about illumination. Like, we're fine if it's not illuminated, but if it's illuminated, yes, we have a problem. Okay, let's handle it in that way. But if we don't, basically, that's maybe my question to you guys. Do we care if signs are interior? And does that constitute a sign?

Is that same distinction associated with the parameters around the open signs? Because I feel like those are often on the inside of a door or window, but facing out.

Yeah, that's a great point. If we put open signs in exempt category, they're going to be exempt from everything in the sign check code. So if illumination isn't touched on in the sign code, then they would still, I think, be regulated by

total lumen count of that was that was the i will say that was the loophole because technically it was interior not our outdoor lighting ordinance therefore they weren't touched which is why they exist in some form today but we can still have a light trespass from indoor lights and that's debatable oh well i was so casa valley has that as an ordinance that is just any of the interior bulb, a lantern effect is kind of how the IDA kind of describes it. A lantern effect of windows with light shining outward. We have not determined that to be direct illumination or trespass. That is just customary to illumination of an interior building. We get a lot of complaints about that. Somebody has really bright lights inside their house. This dabbles into what I would debate as like Domain law like that is your domicile like your kingdom. We cannot be regulating not only the interior of people's homes, but the operation of those things is my opinion. If we did, I think the state would have something to say about it. Say that much. But that's just that but with signs it does kind of cross into a little bit more of like that's regulatory territory that is like it's the intent again what is that what is the thing doing well the intent is to advertise or do something to the exterior and not only that but illuminate to the interior so i would argue the intent trips it in versus a light bulb somebody's like i can see their light bulb then don't look get blinds for yourselves like take some ownership Take some ownership on yourself to mitigate.

What's the intent of that?

Yeah. Right.

The intent is you're trying to lure a person in.

With these signs. With these signs. Yeah. So it is, it's been, it was kind of a loophole-y place. And I would, it'd be good thing for us to practice if we're in touch lighting and all this would be the one lighting thing. It'd be kind of enough crossover to touch. But it's, we, with our lighting ones, like bistro lights, if you recall, we're like, it was kind of, we just wanted them. There was no real good justification from an outdoor perspective why we should allow them, but we're like, we just want them. And we, through the entirety of the process in the city said, yeah, we're going to accept bistro lights, even though they don't, they're not shielded and they don't have these things. So this may be something we find ourselves like, we're okay with that. We're okay with whatever your windows are that you have. signs not only signs but they can be illuminated and they're not falling into molo maybe we find ourselves there i will say if we do try to regulate it boy are we going to need some more people we have a fleet of lighting review agents right another thing to consider

Oh, another thing that Kaylin's touched on was a placement, um, of external lighting. Um, I was trying to go through my head and see practically how can we be softer on this? I find that when I'm advising people about illuminating their signs, um, it's either going to be on the ground. absolute easiest is to put something on the ground and face it up. But then if you've already made the effort to attach it somewhere on top is not going to be more effort than side or diagonal. If we're not going to allow straight up lighting, which MOLA wouldn't allow, then having some other placement other than on top facing down. I don't know how much that would really benefit the community.

Yeah, I have to say this graphic doesn't do a lot for me. There were some much better ones in the MOLO, but the difference between the center image and the not allowed image is so small, but I don't think it's really effectively communicating.

Yeah, I don't think so either.

Yeah.

Thanks for the drag board on that one thing. Yeah, this doesn't work in practice either. Like if we have these out in the field and

yeah there is still upward illumination with even the ones in the middle and even that one for the matter that's on the left it's just yeah the evolution of with this in my big soapbox for molo is there's a lot of regulations being written by non-technical professionals and so they're proposing stuff like this and like look it works and like go look outside it's really it's pretty amazing yeah

Something that I'll definitely, I think we should chat about is Caitlin's comment about the total lumens per line. Because in practice, the total lumens on the lot is, I do not have that information for the majority of lots unless they've gone through a site plan in the last three years. That's a good point. I just do not know.

I think that for, this would be for a new build. Sounds like potentially applicable for that.

Which I think that's what we've been practicing. Is if there's a build that is proposing a sign at the same time, it's captured at all. Cool.

Well then, that's it. Great. Okay. Anything else you need to know?

Yeah, if we, was there anything else about residential zones? I know we went through it a lot already. I have put forward the suggestion of general business license is that threshold. There's a misspelling in general business license. I believe it.

The bussiness. The bussiness and the lice. The lice-ness. Just FYI. So that, you know, it gets fixed in the long run.

Yeah, I think this gets, it's more specific to the nature of what is happening or being advertised. And this is where when you say, oh, residential zones. Mm-hmm. Getting away from this idea that all residential zones are the same or commercial zones are the same. It's what is happening on the property. So licensing is a good way to articulate that. It can also be changing. We're dealing with a property right now that's running off of years of nonconforming entitlements just continue to roll forward because they just happen to have gotten a license at one point or a sign. And now they're entitled for that forever versus, well, each time you get a license, do you get a sign or what's happening? Right. the use being more of the trigger than the zone I think it's a good change nice okay public and religious signs in residential zones out anybody's taking the AICP there's a case law just about that such thing Not touching it.

And it's pretty much the same. So, yep. Blags? Blags aren't counted. But we do have a higher maximum height. Any comments on flags being higher than our normal signs? we have a property that's really taken advantage of the flags and has a lot of flags that are, as written right now, they're counted towards the square foot, but they can still be increased height. So we could write it as all these Fairly exempt signs like government flags and state flags are the only ones that can be 35 feet and other signs of your creation need to be lower if that's important to you guys.

I think that's a great closing of the loophole that I can imagine being abused. And we are saying that governmental or kind of we'll call them official sign or official flags are just that, flags. Yet the material of a flag, but it is a sign, we're going to call a sign. It's not exempt as a flag just because of the material. Is that what we're saying? Oh, good. Good. Yes. Now they look both closed.

Okay.

Yeah, I like that suggestion, Johanna.

Thank you. Computation's deleted. It just says follow the below sections. Height. I have inserted what we've been practicing for building height into this height so that it's consistent no matter what we're measuring. Yeah, the nearest sidewalk curb really lent itself to a lot of silliness.

Our north corridor zone where there's a dramatic drop, so the building to sidewalk was again, a challenge for Beth.

Okay. This one. Tricky. This is, we got to work on the wording for this. Mona did a great job rewriting this. But this big long paragraph says that if you have a sign that is right on a wall, Um, we're not going to count the whole wall as your sign. We're going to draw a circle around or the smallest shape possible around where the emblems and lettering is, and that is going to be your sign.

Right.

Hmm.

Could it be something where it's more like, throw out an example of two inches around the exterior of your sign is considered your sign. I'm just throwing that out as an idea. Absolutely. Rather than the shape of a circle or a rectangle because somebody's sign might go like this.

I think that's what, like if it's just, say it's calligraphy words.

Right, right.

It would be the minimum, at least the way I've described it, the minimum polygon that can capture the entirety of that text or image. Where it gets weird, and this is actually jumping ahead to one of my things I was going to say here, think about this, is what constitutes a sign. So that's all, yeah, we're going to go there. But when we are starting to dabble, you really go down this rabbit hole of what is art, what is imaging, and what is sign. Our current definition for sign is what we'll get to, to start there, but it is very much, it is a big grab. So this is if it's all brick and then we have, you know, calligraphy, it's just the minimum polygon. I think that works in my opinion for area computation. So I think tightening it in again, make the language better.

Are you talking about something that's then attached? Yeah. Versus I saw the mural one. I read about that one. So this would be an attached sign on the wall, right?

Okay. Okay. But then if you had some sort of square, you have a brick wall, and then you have a wood sign, and then you have lettering, the wood sign. Is your sign. That's your sign.

So I think I'm going to call it down.

There. I can't find it here. that's on the platform of some sort.

Yeah, where each letter is kind of mounted on its own. Those are the signs that typically we see in this way. It's not a mural, but it's not a plaque. The terminology for those, I can't remember.

We'll find it.

Yeah.

Okay. This one is specifically for signs that are shaped like this. or shaped like this. Recently, I had some issues with especially signs that are advertising upcoming builds. They're often like this. And then we had in there not more than 42 inches apart. And that person really tore me apart because they said 42 inches.

What is this?

I said, I'm not sure. So I think we could simplify it without the measurement and just say, if the reasonable person can't see both signs at the same time, we'll calculate it as one. If from any angle, I can see both signs completely, It's pretty subjective, but that's the way it's written right now. We could do away with counting two faces of the same sign, and that would rid us of this issue. Or we could add in an angle measurement. Lots of possibilities for this one.

Sorry for anyone watching that we're doing a little hand gestures here, both angles. Yeah. So yeah, you have a mirrored sign as I have expressed. Okay. You have a mirrored sign, same, same on both sides. It's one sign really. And then as it starts to angle apart, okay, still one sign it's connected, but as they begin to separate, whether they're perpendicular or excuse me, parallel or on an angle at a certain point, the back end of the signs is now visible to passerbyers where those are just two individual signs. 42 inches is pretty tight, but I think that's implying just have them touch or have them far apart. Don't play this game of, well, they're 43 inches. Come on, really? And go put it 50 feet over that way and just have a separate time. The hard times do come. Everyone is like, Right here. So I think, yeah, keep maintaining, maybe we get rid of the, that they must be connected. It's structurally one sign. There is no separation. I'd be okay getting rid of that.

I'm sure there was one instance where somebody was like, but it's, I have to separate them for some reason, whatever.

But yeah, not double dipping them on the same side. It makes a lot of sense.

Okay. Number of freestanding signs.

Really?

Put my opinion on that one. If we do feel strongly about the difference between frontages, then we can keep it. And there's also... The distance between the two freestanding signs, that's a big barrier. I hear a lot of feedback on that one.

If we can think about this one as a commission, I'd like... to the simplification that we're seeing is where I think we ought to be going. I think this is a remnant of his, you know, really being onerous of having this mid set. This is a leftover of the mid center. We want everyone to have the same. We don't designate primary and secondary frontages. We have to do it after the fact for this code. And it's a real, real pain and often doesn't make any sense. It's, you know, so I think, If you can have to, have to. Our attorneys will preach to us on those things. Let them do it or don't let them do it. This middle ground thing can be really hard. Only have these middle ground types of regulations and provisions if you really think it's important to distinguish between them. I'm not saying believe what we're saying. Just ponder it in that sense.

Okay.

Okay. Oh, getting rid of mentioning of advertising signs, we can deal with all that in the definition of signs. And then what seems like a misprint to me, in the C4 zone, they can have a sign two feet from the right-of-way, which seems really close because... Their setback is 25 feet. Also, monument signs. I think I don't like them. A freestanding sign and a monument sign, the only difference is that a monument sign has specific look characteristics. Otherwise, they're both the same kind of form of you're not connected to a building. And we can look at the monument sign definition, but it didn't quite make sense to me why. If you look a certain way, you can be two feet from the right of way.

Yeah. But folks end up manipulating their designs to get the benefit of one or the other, but it's clearly not the intent. So just to get rid of the distinction.

to get rid of those city of Moab signs. No, we just call it freestanding signs. Get rid of them. They are monument signs.

Yeah. And that's why I think we just, yeah, we open the door up a little bit where we consolidate this. Usually we're going towards sophistication, but in an effort to simplify, maybe we do bring things into common terminologies, but then just open it up with more flexibility.

Yes. Then we've got what I feel is the most important sign code section. Don't block the intersections. Okay, shopping centers. This is an interesting one. This states that if you have a group of businesses, you can have one big sign that takes up all of your square footage that lists all your property's names or just has the name of the big complex. And then each individual business, their building front line, as it's written right now, they get that amount of square footage to just identify their portion of the little building and our minds imagining a strip mall.

Right.

Um, we don't have too many, um, but we do have a few around town that take advantage of this and it is a pretty big advantage. Um, can essentially double your square footage. Um, Yes, it does say up to 28 square feet for your individual business sign. And most people's building front lines is much more than 28 feet. So I threw out the number of 100. Oh, that's not red. This is an ad.

This ability is actually, I think, worked out really nicely for business owners. It's a nice tool, I think, that we should continue. I will say, though, this will get into one of the areas, maybe me personally, looking at this of the linear frontage of each building within the plaza. going kind of contradictory to our eclectic nature of maybe having these be a little bit more standard regulated if everyone you know the plaza gets the big plaza sign whatever but then every business no matter how big your biggest business frontage is gets kind of this 28 so i'm actually kind of in that in the plaza it's very regular the exterior the big one can be whatever your bigger frontage adjustments might be so i might kind of be a little bit of a contrarian on this one I like that a lot. And whatever that, again, the square footage is where you guys think. We've come up with some displays that kind of demonstrate different square footages of what we mean, you know, kind of a human scale. Like this is what we mean when 20, what 28 really looks like or what 50 or 100 looks like as far as a sign. And that might help when we do get in the square footage scale, putting it into some perspective of what that might mean.

Off-premises signs is just you are advertising somebody else's business on your property. If we're not reading the signs, then this is not applicable.

I think with that, as long as the caveat can be that you're bundling it, so you'll have to be capable of advertising yourself.

Yeah.

Because I was like, this is exactly what you described. We have to get rid of this. You don't get an extra. Whether it's one Indian restaurant to another Mediterranean restaurant, we don't care. Yeah. But if said business doesn't have the capacity to be advertising, they can't advertise on behalf of somebody else in proxy.

Yeah.

So that might, we'll have to maybe tune that up as a function.

Well, it's just the regular code. So you can't have a sign for like a large sign for the Apache on someone's residential property.

Right.

You can have your large sign for the Apache at Hogan.

Right. And so right now to have signage, technically, you must be a business to be able to advertise. Now, these are non, this is kind of a, again, it's a complexity of how the code is structured. It's not that you have to have a business license in order to advertise. It's that in advertising, it needs to be associated with a legal business type of thing. maybe that would seem as structured perfect. But my point is, you know, you have an abandoned property, say an old pizza joint. Nobody's operating there. But then somebody wants to advertise on that. They're like, I'm not renting it to anybody. I'll just rent out my advertising space. We'll have to grapple with whether that's acceptable or not because they're not actually operating the site. Therefore, care and maintenance isn't going to be a thing. Therefore, advertising on a property without a primary business, even if it's for something else, I think we stick to it. So I think this is sound the way it's written. We don't need to add anything, I don't think, but maybe we'll look into that just to tie up that loophole. But I like it.

So now we get into the character. So parked vehicle signs. Parking a vehicle with the intent of I'm wanting people to read what I have written. This is hard to prove because people, we've got a code about parking on the street for a certain amount of time. So if anything, that code would probably get you before this one, unless you're parked on your personal property. And then it's really hard to prove what your intent is going to be in that. And then if you take it around the block, is that you driving it for the day? Is that you driving it for the month? It's difficult, but, um, it was important to somebody. So if it's important to you guys, we can keep it in as a guideline, um, And something to point to when we're chatting with people.

Well said. And this is an active problem. Always has been. So it's either that the community needs to be kept in check all the time or the regulation is wrong because we are constantly having this issue. So I don't know which one of those is the right thing, but it is constantly happening and it's constantly a battle. Both in the right of ways and on private properties, constantly a battle. But I think Johanna hit exactly what are the weaknesses on that. But that is to say, if we were to say, let's just, if you want to park a vehicle and have it be part a sign, Then just make it part of your sign package and that square footage is allocated. That becomes a question that I've been like, when they're going to say, well, it's not a sign. I just, it's my decals and I have it parked. So we're just, the runaway effect here is if we just allow that to not be a sign and you're allowed to just do it, we're not prohibiting it. We could see people parking many vehicles or big vehicles that operate as billboards and they're getting away from regulation. So getting rid of it altogether, I'm a little weary of because it is such a common issue we have. But I think tightening it up in a permitted way or, you know, it's a good one to think about.

Yeah, to me, it makes sense to try to fold it into the total sign allocation per business or per property to the extent possible. I know there will still be always those kind of wishy-washy cases like Johanna was just describing of somebody saying, oh, it's not a sign. It just is parked there and has a matching decal or whatever. But it could be a way to try to mitigate a little bit.

Yeah. And I think right now it's just prohibited. Even if we were like, we'd love to add it to your sign package, we can't. It's just flat prohibited. So if we said, no, that's a sign, we're making the same compliance arguments anyway, so it doesn't change anything there. We just say, oh, here's your avenue to success. So I like that one. We could extract it from the prohibited signs area and systemically, oh yeah, that's a sign. It can be regulated by the sign. But strike it from strictly prohibited So maybe it's this provision except when authorized through a sign permit. Something like that. Maybe. Signs on the public right-of-way. We might have to look at that one in the context of state code. That is what they passed in the last legislative session. So they passed the Utah state law that then Trigger trips into an argument that political signs are permitted without regulation in the public right of ways that was the state legislative session. But if we can't regulate per type of signage then anybody could put any sign in the right of way and it's not their property. So it's created a paradox. And this is what when we were at APA that we're kind of starting to talk about this. So we may have to get rid of this provision, but I don't know.

If we take long enough, maybe it'll change again.

That's well, there are some really wise people at the state that were at the APA conference that maybe said the very same thing. Sometimes you just, yeah, just the weather will change. Yep. C is still good though, I think. And D. E.

E everybody. So, um, we really have picked on this one particular, um, cheap, effective type of sign. Um, I've heard complaints from business owners, um, also heard complaints from people that don't like them. So. What are your thoughts? And we'd love to next time this comes up. I thought we already had these not allowed in our code.

I remember having like a robust discussion about the feather signs.

2022. Yes. Feather signs were new on the scene. This was added. Feather type signs are prohibited unless they're attached to a permitted display apparatus. We thought hey buildings, everyone, you have plenty of opportunities to get your name out there and to attract advertising. Who doesn't are food trucks. So food trucks or anybody that falls within the display apparatus category, something that's a smaller you don't have the land area to be doing all those things so you can have one so long as it's attached to your your thing for a number of reasons it doesn't blow away into the right away create other issues or blockages it just attach it to your thing and people can see you better so that was the 2022 argument for prohibiting them but allowing them in a particular context it's operated okey-dokey until recently. Well, it's been operating okey-dokey.

It's one of our bigger... Is that the technical term? That's the technical term.

What we see, though, are many entrepreneurs or upstarts of businesses that are grasping for business and trying to survive. This is an economic, accessible, and seemingly effective for some folks, option.

um that also what is it that they're saying so it's like the like it's like the ones you stick in that are like the flag that are like yeah breakfast or open now or whatever that are kind of movable where it looks like kind of like

kite material yeah some communities call them blade signs some can call them flag signs and we researched feather was probably the one that was the least could be drawn into a different category these blades technically can also be like the ones that stick out of a wall yeah so we ended up on feather of in the community that being kind of acceptable but yeah it's like car lot type stuff and this again into temporary displays not signs we've had this and had to go through this, is the wavy, wacky, inflatable arm people. Balloon signs. We start getting territory with that with feather signs of what is actually... what we consider characteristically appropriate advertising and what is, hey, I'm being really loud over here with visually loud. And is that something we were tamping down? Now, the reason to prohibit it was just that. People were just putting dozens of them up in or on the right of way or near it, creating visual clutter. And so we wanted to reel that in. But the counter argument is, hey, I'm a new business. I'm really just trying to get my name out there a little bit. So again, very good character oriented type question. I think it could go both ways. I think people can be really upset if we allow it. People can continue to be really upset that we're not.

Was there a discussion around counting them amongst all the other total sign size and quantity allocations when this first got added into the prohibited section just because it is like a cost-effective option for new businesses.

And that could be the route we go. Is that if we did contemplate it, my memory at the time was it becomes added complexity. Since then, we've had ordinances and initiatives come in that are far more complex. But at the time, that was like, oh man, that's a lot of work for the applicant, for the sign people. Like that's a lot of work to figure out how to add that to the package. Given our landscaping environment, lighting ordinance i'm like oh that's a piece of cake in retrospect now so maybe that is something we look at like yeah you can have it it's a sign just make sure it's part of your package kind of that being the mantra so i will say for compliance though that'd be that would be from a compliance perspective say we have a patrolling compliance type agent out there And if they see one feather sign, they're probably going to assume all the feather signs are good. So we're never going to get a true, somebody can get one approved and then all of a sudden five more show up and nobody knows the difference unless Johanna's out there like, hey, that was one. So it puts a little onerous on us maintaining that compliance. And that was the thought back then, Caroline, was let's either be in or we're out. And we decided attaching it to food trucks was like, oh, that's really easy to recognize. That's just permitted, period. And everywhere else, it's not.

Oh, feather signs.

The last prohibited sign is just a reference to no intermediate flashing. Yes, please. Temporary signs. God, no. So, okay, exempt signs. We've got a lot of fairly obvious ones. Ones that the city is putting up for public safety. The signs that are part of the building and cannot be taken out of the building. Then we get into some less obvious ones. Private direction. They have a two square foot limit on this. And then one directional sign per frontage. I think that may be overlooked for safety.

I think we can get out of the way with that. I think wayfinding, which is what this category is, like through our master sign plans for civil design of circulation, they have standards. And I think we just acquiesce to that. It's not a sign that we have to contemplate here. Again, it's exempt, but we just, I think we don't identify that as a sign. We identify that as wayfinding. And that's how we break it apart.

Great. service signs, signs that are incidental to the lawful occupying of the property. This one really gets away from me sometimes. For example, no donations after a certain hour. That seems pretty incidental, lawfully occupying. But maybe not. And maybe if there's six, maybe not. It's a really tricky definition to write.

This has been one where I will honestly say I found a lot of flexibility in trying to make things work for folks. Yeah. So I hate to see it go, but tightening it up is the right thing to do. You know, well, yeah. However we define it best, I think it can retain the flexibility it's intended to have. Put it that way. Yeah.

Okay, and then I put in the one free open sign mostly because popular demand. So that one's, again, just kind of my opinion. We don't like it. That's okay.

Well, since this has come up, I've also kind of heard it as one free open sign. is exempt but also maybe per frontage I've heard that too it's like well I want to know here that makes sense that's kind of like the single directional like well yeah that makes sense to me and it's reasonable when you have six again like I said I've seen buildings literally with six of them yeah And the business is closed still. But I, so it is.

There are some perpetrators in Penn. Yeah.

I mean, well, I've understood trying to engage with the community. There's cultural differences too. And other communities and places that is just like open means like we exist. It's not meaning we're literally doing point of sales. So for them, that's just, we're here.

Existentially, we are open.

Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I think we may have to conform a little bit of bringing the confirmation in line. But I think the per frontage is reasonable.

Temporary decorations. I think it's fine to have in here. I don't know if I can think of a temporary decoration that would meet the definition of sign that I would be concerned. But I just haven't thought about it yet.

How about like window paint decorations? For the holidays. You can have some information. That's special on Main Street. That's a thing. Where shop windows become signs sometimes.

So service signs, temporary decorations, pennants. I've used a lot of these to kind of help folks just be a little more creative in the past. Those provisions are tough. So to what is, what isn't, if we're really challenged. I think there's the obvious stuff on either end of it. It's when it gets kind of in the middle, it's really tricky for staff.

I do have a clarification on murals that might, or just a flag. I think it makes sense as written. However, that is not contemplating things like the Moab mural that's up on the Bowen building, because that has lettering. But it says Moab. It's not lettering for the business itself.

Expand the definition.

I would say maybe the lettering including the business lettering and or something just something clarifying that like there can be lettering but it can't be the business name or logo so let's maybe we'll say yes and put a pin into it when we come back to what yeah whatever that would look like is what maybe we should sign because you can definitely you can see there being like cool like quotations on referrals in the future or

And by our practice, we've interpreted, and we can do this where maybe it's not in code, but we have findings of fact that we propel our policy of how we're interpreting. Yeah.

And it doesn't, I don't think. Yeah.

It's not about you. You say Moab or.

Yeah.

Great. But we're immediately about to get into what I'm about to say is ice cream.

Ice cream.

it's everywhere advertising or is that it's cute it's cute i've heard that it is so cute so do we want to make that do we want to pivot we got a couple minutes yeah let's um yeah we do have a couple of things that are um big big question um This is going to take a lot of commitment from the city, but do we want to renew sign permits every year? Do we want to? Do you? Cory's vociferously shaking his head. Do you want to do inspections? If that is top priority, let us know and we'll need to move some things around.

No. My pitch in that is they used to manage, and this is how, again, when I was talking about businesses and scientists kind of being poorly, is they would actually try to regulate commercial operations through signed reviews. Are you still who you are? Are you still doing what you say you're doing? And so the annual reviews were tied to the annual business license assessments, which are also kind of at play. By the state, we must renew business licenses annually. It's my understanding.

Right.

And in doing so, it was kind of like, well, if you're doing that every year, we should align that these are being done at the same time. We're going to, so yeah, I'm saying, just like any other land use approval, no. If we find that you're non-conforming or you're in violation, we'll handle that through those channels. We don't need to ignore you, is my.

Yeah, that's how I feel about it. Yeah. Don't make more work.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

So I've highlighted the sign definition, device, fixture, flag or structure that uses any color, form, graphic, elimination, symbol or writing to advertise, announce the purpose or identify the purpose of a person or entity or to communicate information of any kind to the public. I've written a pretty robust article memo that has a series of questions that I ask myself to determine if something is a sign or not a sign. Most of those questions are just breaking up this ginormous sentence. But it gets really tricky around identify the purpose or communicate any kind of information to the public because art communicates that lady's sad to me um and if we could just get rid of a few words and focus on that you are um announcing the purpose of something on the lot then that would really tighten things up for me as to what's advertising without specifically tying it to a business and having to read anything. If something that you're showing exists on the lot, if the ice cream cone, if there's ice cream stand right there, ice cream cone is advertising. If you have an ice cream cone, but you have a dog wash and ice cream is just cute, then that's art. That would be, that's kind of what my memo has said and what I've been practicing.

If that business shutters tomorrow and something else moves in, it still works regardless of what the business is. That would sort of be the catch. I think for me. I don't know how you would write that out, but if your mural is still a mural, even if your specific business no longer occupies that space, I think that is fine. So for me, yes, there's ice cream. Yes, it is occupied by ice cream. But if a clothing store moved in, the ice cream cone could remain. And it's cute. or what have you.

Jimmy John's had, if you remember, up in, I think, 33rd South and Las Vegas, it was an ice cream shop. Oh, yeah.

Oh, that one by the light rail. Oh, yeah. And they painted it black. They painted it black.

Black ice cream.

Yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about.

But I think he has nailed it. I think Kaya's kind of illuminated a really good mental exercise.

How do we... Well, I think communicate business-related information. I think just that qualifier, maybe.

But then the ice cream cone works. And then it's very... Yeah, it's tough.

They put the word ice cream. Then it becomes a true sign of advertising.

It also... I'm realizing my own flaw in logic because sometimes people bring something to me. They, they, they have a sign that says ice cream, but then I went in and they don't sell ice cream and I'm not the better business Bureau in charge of misleading advertising. But I certainly would say come by ice cream is a sign, even if there's no ice cream being sold. So it's,

And there's historic, like there's a lot of buildings in town that still have whatever their historic purpose was. Like something is not a church or it's not like the uranium, like the mine office anymore, but it's still the uranium building and it's still got some.

Yeah. And what's tough is we'll probably swim in the obvious realms and those are like, yeah, this is easy and that's easy. It is, as Johanna said, like you're having to make an interpretive discretionary call on something that is very tight. Is that or is it not? I've heard within this building, there are people that are like, don't know regulation whatsoever. And then others that are like, if it is a gecko, big thing of a gecko, yes, that is a sign. So we have opinions within the building that are 100%, 0%. I think for us, this is why it's such a character thing. If we enjoy the public realm of art and the use of art as messaging loosely, you know, we think about the car wash. Well, generally, kind of public murals. They don't have a particular attribute per se. It doesn't tie to that business. Business changes. No impact. It's just a big mural. But then we have ones that are really just nice or fun, maybe is the better way to say it. That are for that business. And we're only taking a fraction of it. Where it says restaurants name. And that's the sign. But the whole rest of the mural is art. And it's cactus and stuff.

I think the question comes down to me. And this would be something that I'd be really curious. What council thinks. I think I'd use it like. Do we care? Do we care about a sign when it's not sticking off of the building. In some way. When it is a mural. Is there a special reason. category where like if your signage and your information is painted on your building it is not illuminated in any way shape or form none of the murals are illuminated like if they put a light over the ice cream cone that becomes a sign because you can see it all the time but if it's just the mural on the side of the building and then it happens to also give people information during the day maybe maybe the illumination or the highlighting of it. But like, like you said, I think, personally, I want to encourage more businesses to get rid of their ugly weird wall on the alley or on the corner or whatever i think it's cool if they do some business related art i think that's awesome like rise has done that the gelato folks have done that now you know i think i think it's great the wings are a big cultural yeah the way like yeah

And so some people have matched that with putting their name above those wings. And it's like, okay, we'll capture that name, wings, whatever it's not.

Yeah.

Like it's their building. It's become kind of... So use this formula idea. Take that and really run with it. And they do a wrap on the entire building in a really... loud way yeah that doesn't exactly advertise like business name but it is on the verge are would we be okay with that flagrant of a use of this exemption and if we feel like yes then everything's south of that it's gonna be like yeah that's the reason and we have to assume like someone could paint their house with a mural how they wanted yeah I mean, until it becomes a sign, though. Yeah.

That's why I think maybe other characteristics of signs, if we could nail down something other than The content of the mural. When it comes to murals. Just for murals. When it comes to murals, if there's some way we could... Really good point. We can regulate content of murals.

We can't regulate content of signs. But if we can regulate... Yeah, because that's really what we're talking about. Not territory to define the is.

Or you could leave it so it is like... just a touch more up for subjective interpretation by staff or it would be like a mural a mural with business information incidental to art or something we definitely can do that we just don't want to be putting staff into a heart a hard decision place yeah we can we will certainly have to that no and honestly we do no matter what it is yeah even if it's clear as day

It's still the zoning administrator's interpretation of that that will pass.

Or it's like art with information instead of information with art.

Let me throw one more piece because we're kind of talking murals. Yeah, sorry. What is sign? So my example of this is somebody puts a pole sign with a giant ice cream cone figure on it.

No.

Is that a sign? That's a sign.

But what if there's no ice cream shop for blocks and this person really likes these?

Maybe ice cream's a bad one. Let me make it complicated a little bit first. What if it is on, maybe make it really obvious from the start. It is a pole sign and then it is delicate arch up there.

Okay.

Okay. Okay. It's nondescript to the business. It's one of those things. It looks like a sign. It's mounted and illuminated. It's got all the stuff the sign is except conveying a clear message.

Yeah.

Therefore, is it a sign?

I think the physical, it has, I think there's two things. There's like two things that make something a sign. It's the content and then the physical characteristics of the sign.

So that definition, I think it's a, it is something that, That's conveying a message to someone. So when I read this definition, there are three parts I pull out. And that's Johanna's working criteria of how to diagnose it. But that's exactly it. It is form, intent, and message, and the communication of it.

Well, can we put in there sign means any device, picture, poster, other than a mural that uses and then have mural.

I would be okay with that. I think if you're, if you're busy, take the wall thing. If it's painted on the wall, it's a mural. But the minute you hang it on there, is it still mural or is it a sign now that doesn't, you know what I'm saying? I think it's a sign. I think you've got to draw that line. And I'm okay with that.

Can it blow off in 75 mile an hour?

It is its own thing. When you're ordering this from somebody, it's a sign company that's building it. I think there's a lot of what ifs and holy smokes, I've been saying the grandma thing. My grandma would be a bike thing lately. So you can play with us all day long. I think we have to operate with the intent that the community is going to act reasonably, but I think we have to prepare ourselves for the public to not act reasonably, but be prepared for that, but really build it around everyone acting reasonably.

Yeah, like if someone paints some horrible AI-generated flyer art on the side of their building, personally, I would be very upset by that and regret that.

There was nothing to. But this helped me. I think we got there. And I think the fact that you're saying the structural element, the theme.

Yeah.

Because there's other concerns with that.

There's safety concerns with that. There's the lighting concerns.

Or long enough picture or materials to create that. Then it kind of does become more of the content or message. Not content, but the ability to make message. If it invokes feelings, that's not necessarily a sign. But if it's directing you in some way, telling you, then yeah, it's advertising.

Yeah. Because like, I mean, look what like Elsie's did. That's obviously a sign.

Yeah.

But I know going through the process with William in here. talking about the business and the plans that that was a labor of art for him making that you know so definitely yeah interesting I look for this stuff this is good stuff this is fun stuff but yeah I think we wouldn't want to chill people

I think that's it. I think we can without we let too much in. That's really what this intent is. How can we open it as widely as we possibly can for that? Well, your feedback, at least for me, I think we can connect about how to legally box that in, but I think you're onto something. It gave me a lot to think about, and that will help the rest of this as we're building the rest of the language. Like, yep, this is signage. Yep, this works. It's the base.

Cool.

Onward and upward? So we've entered definitions. I have a few other updates.

I would like to maybe move to, it's eight now.

Move to the next? Yeah, if you can. Wonderful. So I'll follow up with you guys tomorrow. And then if you guys want any materials from us that'll help your decision making, we can provide those to you. Whether that be finding 10 different communities, sign definitions. We can do that. Or visuals, whatever y'all need. And then we'll talk again. Awesome. Future agenda items.

Future agenda items.

We, I've got a schedule update. Yeah. So next meeting, July 23rd, it looks as though we do not have quorum. So the meeting will be canceled. Okay. Also September 10th, the planning crew will be attending a conference. So there will not be a meeting. that if you forget, it's reflected in our scheduling worksheet, spreadsheet. Then August 13th, we are packed. We have got probably a site plan to review, city forwarded code amendment, perhaps a DA, perhaps, a presentation by Alexi and then perhaps an update on the vendor code that we chatted about. We are having a stakeholder meeting with the private property vendors and the owners of the private property who host vendors. to ask them questions that'll help inform our latest draft of the vendor code. And then next steps for that, we'll be bringing it to you and then bringing it to city council. Again, that is gonna be standalone because we really wanna bring relief to those people as soon as possible. um we also have i just want to give a quick update on what else we've been working on code wise um our new planner and i have been working on uh keeping the ball rolling on your great input for our uses. So you'll recognize the biggest of buckets and then our big buckets. And then we are going through and using our current permitted uses in each zone to sort them into their respective buckets. So it's all coming together, folks. And then... When we're done, we'll bring it back to you and then we'll fill in some of our new uses or we might wait till we have better community direction after the general plan. And then just formulating the big buckets is going to be our step one code rewrite. And then we'll come back step two and really put things where they ought to be. Something that I may... email you for to look at is we have been talking as departments as new triggering mechanisms for levels of review for subdivision and for site plan. So site plan we're pretty familiar with. We got the one trigger or two triggers at 2000 square feet. We have a level one site plan. At 8,000 square feet, we have a level two site plan. And there's a little bit more information in there. But generally, that's the rules. And you see level two. What we are looking at is a little bit more nuanced approach where we have a few different levels as there's been some frustration that I'm just trying to do one small, tiny thing. You guys are sure making me do a lot. So we are looking for your input. Now that the departments have given their input on what separates a medium project and a big project in their minds, we'd love to know when you wanna be involved and when you think it's fair for the community to see projects and tell you what they think about projects. None of your decision making ability administrative wise is going to change. But when we elevate things to come before planning commission, when that's triggered, can. So I'll send this to you and then we'll be looking at the approval body section, and then the new residential unit square foot change, new build columns to see what size would be triggered to come to planning commission. And then I would love your comments on what you think about that. And then same with subdivisions. How many lots would you say the community should be apprised of that? And it can get more complicated than this. So if you think that this is too big, we're probably not going to make more review buckets. But if you say there should be some sort of public notice at one of the other levels, we could discuss what that looks like further.

Okay, this will really help us. This is going to set up a whole series of development standards downstream. So please do take some time to think about this. General context, the two things to keep in mind. One, we are to the very best of our ability trying to make things streamlined, efficient, and administrative, meaning the lowest level of Google as necessary. Okay. What that will ultimately do is kick the planning commission out if we were to observe that in total as a review body really at all until we get to discretionary decisions or bigger picture stuff. So your number of items will go down. I believe our body is really well trained to understand your duties. Your duty is to ensure the code is being represented by staff correctly and allow a venue for the community to see that it is being done the right way. You're the watchdog being the community yourself. So extracting you is not something I'm actually a huge fan of, but it is the way the state and everyone else going because you don't have any discretion. You are a redundant element in this part, but I think it's an important part. So keeping that in mind, both in subdivisions and in side plans, it's a hard balance. I'm really torn.

Okay. Okay. Anything else? Yes. My last update is that we will, on this second city council meeting of this month, the mayor will be and city council will be appointing some new members. Yes. We've got more than enough applicants. So we will.

Has that been noticed yet? Do we know who they are?

No. No, that's I think the week of the couple of weeks. Cool. Until that meeting, but I'm really excited.

There are newly clarified appointment procedures.

Yes.

Very nice. Awesome. Oh, that's really great. So Carolyn, you're allowed to go have your baby. Yay. Thank you. You weren't until now, but now you can.

yeah my last i think my last meeting so i just want to appreciate you all for the last three years always impressed by the professionalism and passion of the planning staff and fellow commissioners i've learned a lot from everybody and uh feel really good that you know moab is in good hands so I hope to swim in the planning waters again with you all someday. And I'll be following along with the rest of the code updates.

well I just want to say you've been a really fantastic planning commissioner like truly I think we haven't had someone who's provided so much technical know-how and expertise when when desperately needed so thank you so much and just of course your just temperament and and friendliness and contributions are really wonderful so thank you thank you and thank you for sticking around to fill that role until we could could find find other people so thank you yes thank you yay and congrats good luck thank you all right uh on that note i will adjourn the meeting at 8 11 p.m thank you all bye carolyn bye bye see you guys thanks great are we still recording streaming