Planning Commission Minutes 2019 07 11

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Planning Commission Meeting Minutes July 11, 2019 Page 6 of 10 the people living in her building and other people in the area, some of whom had written to the Commission. She asked the Commission to consider the residential perspective, noting that the examples used in the presentations of other monument signs had not been near residential areas. She was concerned about the Hecla Way sign and thought it was out of balance with the residential area, especially given its size and lighting. She noted that the car wash stayed open after dark and their lights shined directly into her living room. She added that the sign might also be disruptive to wildlife given the light pollution. She appreciated the car wash's efforts in trying to blend in already, including planting trees. Howe made a motion to include an email from the public in the record. Motion passed. Zuccaro noted that the underlying code provided options to abandon the current sign program and go back to individual signs for each of the businesses. However, the applicants wanted to vary from the code. Staff therefore looked to the current policies on signage. Zuccaro noted one specific policy in the CDDSG, Section 7.2: "The size of the signs should be modest and provide businesses sufficient visibility and identification without becoming a dominant part of the landscape." When staff reviewed this outside of the context of what was allowed in the code, staff had to consider what worked within the context while also serving the business. Appropriate LED signs needed to be an improvement on what would be there without LED, as well, though staff was not the arbiter on what was appropriate for LED signs. Zuccaro also addressed Section 7.5 in the CDDSG about the plural of the monument signs, noting that they were allowed one monument sign per building. He explained that staff had view the Hecla Way sign in a residential context and signs in that context needed to be an improvement on the code. He concluded by stating that the Commission could approve, approve with conditions, or deny. He noted that it would be helpful for the Commission to have a discussion about their findings . Hoefner asked for staff's perspective on the applicant's feeling that they had not provided sufficient feedback. Zuccaro repied that staff intended to provide feedback so that applications could be ready to go before the Commission, but the applicant had to provide sufficient plans to comment on. In some cases, the applicant and staff did not agree on certain elements of the proposal, so staff was looking to the Commission to make those decisions. Zuccaro added that staff did not make designs, but they did try to provide feedback on proposals. Hoefner asked about the allowance for one monument sign per building. Zuccaro responded that with the existing PUD the car wash had received a waiver to have two different signs in 2010. There were other waivers for other property owners, as well. The property owners would have to abandon the PUD in order to have a monument sign on one of their road frontages. He did not think that would work sign gas stations and car washes would likely need sign frontage on South Boulder Road. Hoefner asked about the initial iteration of the design where there were fewer, larger signs.