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.