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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-11-01 Minutes• • • MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE BOARD OF SIGN APPEALS A regular meeting of the Board of Sign Appeals was held on November 1, 1999 at 3:45 p.m. in Room 111 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas. ITEMS CONSIDERED ACTION TAKEN SA99-3: Sunbridge Business Ctr., pp290 Approved MEMBERS PRESENT MEMBERS ABSENT Michael Andrews Michael Green Thad Hanna Bob Nickle Marion Orton Larry Perkins Gerald Boyd STAFF PRESENT STAFF ABSENT Tim Conklin Janet Johns Mike McKimmey Dawn Warrick Board of Sign Appeals Minutes • November 1, 1999 Page 2 • • SA99-3: SIGN APPEAL SUNBRIDGE BUSINESS CENTER, PP290 This item was submitted by Bill Keating for property located at lots 4, 5, 6, & 7 on Sunbridge Drive. The property is zoned R -O, Residential Office and contains approximately 6.38 acres They are permitted one freestanding sign with maximum display area of 4 square feet per lot. The request is for a freestanding sign with a display area of 20 square feet per lot. Bill Keating was present on behalf of the request. Staff Recommendation This request presents a challenge to the framework of the ordinance. Approval of the petitioner's request will expand the use of joint identification signs into R -O zoning districts. The Inspection Division supports the request. If the Board renders an affirmative decision, this request may provide a model for future R -O subdivisions that are currently under development north of the bypass. Board Discussion McKimmey: Mr. Keating has requested 4 joint identification signs. One on each lot. The property is zoned R -O. The sign code does not give R -O joint identification signs. We're looking for more of these requests to come along. There are several proposed to the north of the bypass In my opinion, this would be less signage to allow the joint identification signs in R -O subdivisions. Mr. Keating's letter to the Board is very good. I find the arguments very good arguments. The size is 20 square feet per joint sign. There are almost 30 tenant spaces available. 80 percent of variance requests have to do with R -O. Some are R -O adjoining C-2. These are flat out professional offices all over the place. This is really a different type of request than the ordinance was designed for. Nickle: We have been talking about making a recommendation for monument signs. How does this request line up with the monument signs? McKimmey: We are currently working on recommendations for revising the ordinances. If those are approved, it would allow 16 square feet for this type of sign. We're in the draft stages and it would require City Council approval. Staff supports this request. Nickle: My office is out on Sunbridge and I have people walking in my office looking for other businesses. I think this request is not only information but it is a safety issue. There will be a lot more traffic out there very soon with the extension to College. The City needs some relief for Township. This will be a busier street and if drivers are driving slowly trying to locate Board of Sign Appeals Minutes • November 1, 1999 Page 3 a business in here, it's going to be a safety factor. If they can identify where they need to be, it will be safer. Perkins: Will this be 15 feet back from the property line? Keating: We have a 4 foot green space, a 5 foot sidewalk, then 15 feet from my property line. Perkins: The sign meets the 20 foot setback for a freestanding sign. Orton: It says freestanding in some places and in others it says monument. McKimmey: One is a subset of the other. Orton: Are they freestanding or monument? Hanna: We consider a freestanding sign a pole sign and a monument sign is set on the ground. • Conklin: The bottom of the sign is connected to the ground. Hanna: The city seems to feel that monument signs are more attractive than pole signs. Keating: That's what it's going to be. I would like to have them all the same. Orton: Where does safety come in? Perkins: So people can more easily identify which business they need as they drive down Sunbridge. Keating: There are buildings behind each other. There are numerous Dr.'s offices It's like North Hills south. It's 25 mph on Sunbridge. We've asked the police to patrol. It's a straight shot and there are drivers speeding at 40 mph. When people are trying to find a doctor's office, it's nice to know where to tum. It's difficult to find where to turn into. Conklin: The Board of Sign Appeals has previously granted a variance for North Hills Medical Park allowing identification signs. Perkins: What will the sign look like? • Keating: It's a monument sign with landscaping. I'd like to make it the least intrusive as Board of Sign Appeals Minutes • November 1, 1999 Page 4 possible. I can do brick but that seems bigger and clunkier than I had anticipated. I envision just a nice, green, metal sign to match the aluminum on the building. I'm open to suggestions. I'd like to make them the same and make them attractive. • • Perkins: How many units will there be? Keating: There are probably 20 buildings. Sometimes we lease out 1,000 feet and other times it's 4,000 feet. Perkins: Will there be more than 24 tenants? If they don't get their name on the joint sign, they'll be back getting wall signs. Orton: They already have wall signs. Keating: I went with a 5 foot sign to allow for 10 inch by 4 foot individual markers incorporated into the monument sign. I wanted to keep under the prescribed height. That gives me 20 foot height. Some tenants don't want joint identification. I have a couple of Wal-Mart vendors that don't want it. State Farm Insurance does want anyone to know they are there because it's for training and not customer service. Orton: There are other R -O offices along that street. I wonder what it's going to look like with a march of signs along there. McKimmey: It's very likely that other property owners will want the same. Orton: If we grant this one, we have to grant the others. McKimmey: I have a request from the teleservice group out there. This is a challenge to the ordinance. It is an expansion This subdivision is something different for Fayetteville. We're growing and things are changing. This is a whole subdivision full of professional offices. We'll have the same thing on the north end of town. It's not like there are houses with the professional offices that the residents want to keep looking like a neighborhood. It's really a different type of zoning in my opinion. It may be appropriate to change the zoning to something else like an office zone. Perkins: This is also unique in that there are many businesses behind each other. Some of these businesses are totally invisible from the street. Green: With building mounted signs, I don't know how you would be able to find an office there unless you roam around through there. The proposal would help move the traffic They are relatively small and unobtrusive. Board of Sign Appeals Minutes • November 1, 1999 Page 5 Orton: Maybe this type of building is not R -O. It's not residential office. It's something else. Maybe it should have another zoning type. We're not here to do that but I wonder if we change the ordinance to fit this development, what are we doing to the rest of the city? • Keating: The property should have been zoned commercial. I don't know. I think Mae Nettleship really wanted to keep it more residential. There were apartments there. I don't think they thought the city would give it a commercial designation. I really didn't know how it would develop. It has assumed a life of its own. It really needs another zoning. Residential office is like that around Lafayette Street. That's residential office. This really isn't residential office. This is commercial. We're trying to fit this into the framework and let Mike figure out how the sign ordinance applies. Orton: This can't be unique to Fayetteville. What is done elsewhere? Conklin: I look at Millsap which is zoned commercial and it is really just offices. The same with Colt Square. I don't know if an exclusive office development is really a commercial use. Perkins: It's certainly not residential. Orton: Can't we just have a plain office zone? Conklin: In a way, R -O and C-2 are office zones. Look at the bypass and Colt Square. Those are pretty much offices and not commercial. In our general plan, we have an office designation but we don't have an office zoning district. Nickle: I think what Mike has come up with on his recommendation makes sense. There is a safety factor. This is a unique situation with the businesses stacked behind each other, it makes sense to have some monument signage out there. I don't consider that an advertisement. It's a guide directing people to where they want to go. Andrews: Mike, you said this would make less signage. What do you mean by that? McKimmey: You've been out there and looked at the project. Every lot could have a 4 square foot sign. Every building has 2 frontages and that get it up to 16 square feet per building. With 30 possible tenants or more the area could get plastered with 16 square feet of signs. Andrews: So, if we allow the monument sign, we would prohibit the existing ability for each building to have two 4 square foot signs? • McKimmey: I did not make a recommendation either way. I think that is for this board to Board of Sign Appeals Minutes • November 1, 1999 Page 6 • • decide. Andrews: What other signage is proposed for these buildings? Keating: Each entrance to the building has a sign under the gable. We tried to guess what business might go in and provide an entrance so a sign could be placed under the gable. I put up a triangle sign under the gable. The box is $1,400. I like them all the same and I provide those for continuity at great monetary expense. I had hoped that would be enough. The city likes to hide the parking lots so we hid the parking lots and placed the buildings at the front of the lots. It's a problem for people driving down the street. They can't figure out where to go. Signs along the street will help immensely. Once they get off the street, everything is fine. Traffic slows down. You allow 1 area identification sign per lot. I need one sign to identify 5 tenants so they know which entrance to turn into. Andrews: Each tenant has a 4 square foot sign near their building. Keating: Technically, each building would be allowed one 4 square foot sign per tenant per building. Orton: That is the triangular sign. McKimmey: Mr. Andrews was asking about a second freestanding sign for each and we're not discussing that at all. This is in lieu of having any other signs. Andrews: One is allowed. McKimmey: One 4 square foot freestanding sign is allowed on each lot. He is asking to expand and provide one monument sign with several 10 inch x 4 feet placards within the 20 square foot monument sign. The sign would be along the road and not by the building. I could see 16 square foot signs plastered all over the walls facing the highway. That, of course, is a worst case scenario. This seems to be a really reasonable request and I support it. Orton: Can we make provisions in granting the variance that the only signage allowed would be the joint identification monument sign and that no other wall signage would be allowed? McKimmey: I believe this Board has the discretion to make that stipulation. Orton: That's not what is being planned on anyway. McKimmey: You can make that part of the motion. Board of Sign Appeals Minutes • November 1, 1999 Page 7 Andrews: You've already said there is 1 freestanding sign per lot and not tenant. McKimmey: Per lot. Andrews: We're really not giving up anything. Hanna: If we put the stipulation in the motion it would prohibit individual businesses from coming back and requesting wall signage. Perkins: This is unique because of the depth and shape of the lots. MOTION Green: I make a motion to approve a.variance to allow 4 point identification monument signs which are 6 feet in height and 20 square feet in area, set back 15 feet from the property line. The only light allowable shall be ground mounted, indirect, flood lamps. Nickle: Second. • Roll Call Upon roll call, the motion passed with a unanimous vote of 6-0-0. Meeting adjourned at 4:40 p.m. •