Westminster Sign Code Amendment

 

Policy Issue

 

Should the City modify the sign code regulations to no longer allow signs to be posted in the public right of way and on public property?

 

Alternatives

 

1.   Council could direct Staff to leave the current code provisions in place allowing for the continued placement of signs in the right of way and on public property. Staff does not recommend this alternative. Under recent Supreme Court decisions, Cities must take an all or none approach to regulating signs on street rights-of-way and other public property.  The current provisions allowing only political signs, and setting durational limitations on their display, could not be preserved without allowing all types of free speech signs in the right of way without any durational limitations. In addition, the current signage practice is causing damage to landscaping and irrigation systems, presents a significant maintenance problem for both the City and HOA's with right of way maintenance obligations, and Staff continues to hear complaints from the public about the unsightly nature of the signage.

 

2.       Council could direct Staff to take a less impactful approach such as eliminating signage from medians but allowing signage in other areas.  While this approach would help eliminate some of the issues the City has with damage to irrigation and landscaping, this would not address some of the legal concerns and it would not completely address the issue of visual clutter.  Staff does not recommend this alternative.

 

 

Background Information

 

The issue of sign regulation in the public right of way and on public property has been an ongoing issue in the City.  The City’s sign regulations were amended several years ago to add additional requirements on the timing, location and size of political and election sign posting.  At the time these amendments were adopted it was recognized that the regulations were in a gray area of the law, and that additional modifications might be warranted.

 

Recent input received from homeowners associations dealing with political signs, as well as input from citizens, City Council and Staff created the motivation to take another look at the sign code.  Staff has analyzed this issue from a number of different perspectives and has concluded that a significant change is warranted.  

 

Staff contacted several surrounding jurisdictions to determine what their signage regulations are for political and election signs.  The results of this survey are attached and reflect that only Westminster and Aurora allow signs in the right of way.

 

Staff evaluated the current costs to the City of allowing signage in the public right of way and on public property.  Below are the description and breakdown of the costs to the Code Enforcement Division and Parks Division of repairing damage and responding to citizen complaints and removing signs.

 

Code Enforcement:

 

610 Hours have been spent in the first 10 months of 2006 on enforcing the City’s sign code regulations applicable to political signs.   The average is approximately 2 hours per complaint called in.  This accounts for the time taken to retrieve the complaint from the voice mail, write it up and assign to the Code Enforcement Officer (CEO).  The CEO’s time involves driving out to the complaint site, call the owner of the sign to have them pick it up, and then a reinspection to verify the sign has been removed.  Sometimes the complaint requires a second call back to the sign owner and another trip out to reinspect.  If not removed the CEO will remove and dispose of the sign.  There have been 163 sign complaints to date in 2006 x 2 hrs manpower each = 326 hours.  In addition, CEOs will go out on Saturdays and remove illegal signs without a complaint. To date 284 hours has been devoted to removing signs.  The total estimated cost for this sign removal work for 10 months is estimated at $15,120.

 

Park Services:

 

The Park Services Division is responsible for the operation and maintenance of City landscaped medians and most streetscape rights-of-way not being maintained by HOA's or business centers.  Of concern for the past several years is the amount of damage to irrigation systems that occurs within these landscaped areas caused by the installation of temporary signs by private parties.  The drip irrigation that provides water to the landscape lies just below the mulch bed (either stone or bark) and are easily pulled apart by foot traffic or permanently damaged by the insertion of wooden stakes or the wire frames currently so popular with political signage.  Because the damage occurs below the surface it is often difficult to see that some of the plant material is not receiving water until the plant begins to show stress by dropping its leaves or succumbing to insect damage.  In a typical year approximately $2,000 in plant loss occurs within the medians caused by malfunctioning drip irrigation systems.  City Staff and the contractors hired to maintain some of these properties also spend approximately 100 to 200 man hours performing repair work on the median and right of way streetscapes at a valued cost of $5,000.

 

The proposed ordinance is attached for City Council’s review.  The changes to the ordinance remove election and political signs as a permitted temporary sign in public rights-of-way and other public property such as our parks and open spaces.  In addition, new definitions have been added reflecting the elimination of election and political signs as a separate category of signs from the ordinance. 

 

Staff will be present at Monday Night’s Study Session to respond to City Council questions and receive direction on this matter.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

 

 

J. Brent McFall

City Manager

 

Attachments

 

 

Metro Area Election Signage Requirements
Municipality	Election Sign Requirement	Are Signs Allowed in ROW
Arvada	No restrictions on height size or number	Not Allowed
Aurora	6 sq. ft. maximum area; 4 ft. max height; no limitation on number	Allowed unless; a) In the center median of public street b) On developed city parks c) On developed city property other than city parks including but not limited to city hall d) On a traffic control or in such a manner that causes an obstruction or hazard to pedestrians or motorists
Boulder	12 sq. ft. maximum area; 7 ft. maximum height	Not Allowed
Broomfield	16 sq. ft. maximum area; 7 ft. maximum height in residential; 32 sq. ft. maximum area; 7 ft. maximum height in business district	Not Allowed
Northglenn	No Restrictions	Not Allowed
Thornton	12 sq. ft. maximum area; 6 ft. maximum height; no limitation in number	Not Allowed
Westminster	(Class 9 election signs) 50 sq. ft. maximum area in zones T1, C1, C2, M1, O1 and similar PUD's. 6 sq. ft. in all other zones in residential PUD's.	Allowed unless; i) they block or otherwise interfere with traffic visibility ii) they are not located within  50 ft. of an intersection iii) they do not exceed 3 sq. ft. in area  No single candidate or issue sign may be located within 50 ft. of any other sign for the same candidate or issue