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Tonight the City Council unanimously approved CITY OF EVANSVILLE ORDINANCE #2002-9
AN ORDINANCE CREATING OUTDOOR SIGN REGULATION
This thing has taken nearly 2.5 years to complete, starting with some really bad ideas that generated a completely crappy 2 line ordinance that pretty much left ANY sign situation up to the discretion of the plan commission. Now we have a 13 page document that outlines things in a fair manner while remaining PRO-business minded.
After battling with many revisions, it went to plan commission for approval and recommendation back in October of 2002. That was when the "STUFF" hit the fan. Many questions came up... many of those having to do with the Constitutionality of the document. With a LOT of help, we were able to revise it several more times to get it where it is tonight.
I have to thank everyone here that has called or e-mailed me with questions and suggestions. Without your interest, a lot of this would have been left unchanged. I also have to thank the ISA for much support and guidance throughout the final process. I also have to say that in finalizing this Ordinance, many groups in this city have come together with thoughtful concerns and suggestions to send another message... a community CAN work together at times. The hope here is that this example of cooperation will be used in other community situations, such as the (Wisconsin mandated) Smart Growth legislation.
The code is not perfect. I had a situation where a developer asked about a sign for one of his new projects... we looked at the code and discovered that the way it is written, he mat be confined to use a 4 x 8 sign in an area that should have something much larger (near a major highway).
Situations like this CAN be solved by a variance or by taking the issue to the board of appeals, so he is not really stuck.
Thanks again for everyone's help!
-------------------- Jeff Vrstal Main Street Signs 157 E. Main Street Evansville, WI 53536 1-608-882-0322 Posts: 670 | From: Evansville, Wisconsin | Registered: Sep 2001
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I commend you for your involvement on such a matter. God knows working with the government is a whole different animal then working with a creative project in your own shop, or even, for that matter, working with some of the lame clients we get from time to time.
I was briefly involved with attending meetings, discussing our local sign ordinance, participating in trying to get a revised ordinance drafted up that would be better suited to the many changes that had occured in the time since the last ordinance had been drawn up.
In the end that whole experience was so frustrating that to this day, I have not read what they decided 5 years ago (if anything) & I hardly care what they decided. Almost no one complies with the sign code anyway, & almost no one gets repremended for non-compliance, so the energy that went into trying to write good guidelines seemed moot.
I did gain an understanding how difficult it is to find the middle ground, as there are a number of interests that do not always align no matter what & compromises are required. It is also difficult to write rules for ALL future occurances, as there will always be new un-anticipated situations. So, as a result of recognizing the magnitude of the dragon you have slain...
Is the new ordinance available on-line yet? or is it a text file of some sort that you would post for those interested? I would bet, now that it is complete, there are probably a few other curious folk besides myself that might enjoy having a look at it.
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