Meetings show signs of life
Indulata Prasad
City officials are looking for signs of feedback from residents, and
the feedback is about signs.
Officials are updating the city’s sign code and adopting a new set
of design guidelines for signs on private property in the city. But
before the updates are set in stone, city officials are offering
informal workshops for property and business owners who might be
affected by the new code. The updates will go before the City Council
for a public hearing sometime early next year.
So far, two workshops have been presented, with four more coming,
and they seem to be showing signs of life, even from sign makers.
“A sign designer raised a couple of good things, like the length
of the signs allowed if you got a company name that has a lot of
letters in it,” Assistant City Manager Sharon Z. Wood said. “We need
to make adjustments in that.”
The example used at a workshop at the Newport Beach Central
Library Wednesday was the lettering of the business Abercrombie &
Fitch.
“I came here to be involved as a sign manufacturer, and to make
sure that my clients’ needs are represented, and the city knows what
I find to be the most significant issues that come up in the actual
trade -- in the actual business that I work in,” said Jack Fovell,
chief executive of South West Sign Co.
The last comprehensive effort to review sign codes was made in
1988, officials said. The public workshops are intended to help
identify issues that should be addressed in the revised sign code.
Officials intend to conduct four more.
Some participants -- about 25 attended Wednesday’s meeting --
voiced concerns about temporary signs and their affect on local
businesses.
Walter Boice, who manages commercial real estate at Realonomics
Corp. in Corona del Mar, said temporary signs are sometimes abused.
To increase sales, merchants put out “going out of business” signs
and then, after a month or two, they come back with another name.Some
were more concerned with city signs than private signs.
“It’s the city code and it’s the city ordinances [we find
objectionable],” said Jeffery Davis, who lives on the Balboa
Peninsula. “Every time they pass a new ordinance, another [city] sign
goes up and so ... you’ll see signs from the light to the sidewalk.”
The city signs Davis complained about were signs that advertised
city ordinance changes, he said.
“I think the city needs to enforce some of the codes that they
have with regards to signs, and I don’t see that that is happening.”
The city is also working with Urban Design Studio Consultants and
a steering committee -- a group of community members that city staff
asked to help review and put together the sign code. The workshops
began in February.
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