Council approves first reading of ordinance encouraging preservation of Burbank’s historic signs

Burbank city staff have been working for about two years developing an ordinance to encourage the preservation of historic signs around the city. Now, those rules are one vote closer to being adopted.

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Council members voted 4-1 during a meeting Tuesday to approve the first reading of a historic signs ordinance that the majority of them felt would encourage property owners to preserve historic Burbank assets but not force them to preserve the nearly 80 signs that date back before 1969.

Councilman David Gordon was the lone dissenting vote.

During a City Council meeting on May 17, Gordon said he was initially going to support the ordinance, but changed his mind after going through it, saying that he thought the incentives to preserve the signs were “gifts” to property owners and that it was too easy for them to undesignate a sign as historic.

“If there’s something unique about these signs that are historic, that the city feels it should be preserved, perhaps we should establish some sort of sign museum,” he said.

Councilman Bob Frutos said he was concerned about the process a property owner has to go through when opting to undesignate a sign.

Christina Michaelis, an assistant planner for Burbank, said the ordinance was drafted in a way to prevent the historic signs from becoming a hindrance to property owners who want to put up a new sign.

Should a property owner decide to preserve a historic sign, they would need to submit an application to have the fixture designated and prepare a plan outlining how they would maintain it.

If the application were approved by city officials, property owners would have access to the incentives and tools laid out by the city to help preserve and restore the sign.

Should the property owner that designated the sign leave, the fixture will keep its historic designation. However, the new property owner could apply to remove its historical status.

The property owner would need to find someone who will want to adopt the sign and if one could not be found, then city staff will work with them to come up with an alternate solution, Michaelis said.

An earlier version of the ordinance would have allowed officials to require property owners to have significant pre-1969 signs designated as historic and preserved.

The then-proposed law was changed in October 2015 to make it voluntary for property owners to designate and preserve a sign.

A survey conducted in October 2014 tallied about 80 potentially historic signs in Burbank’s commercial districts.

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Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio