COSTA MESA : Council Planning to Amend Sign Codes

Just how dangerous is it to drive down Harbor Boulevard while trying to read some of the business signs?

John Feeney, a Costa Mesa resident, thinks it can get pretty hectic, especially when the letters aren’t big enough and there are seven different pieces of information to absorb on a single sign.

Or, if there are three different businesses listed on a multi-tenant sign.

“It gets to be a public safety hazard,” Feeney on Monday told the City Council, which is in the midst of amending its sign ordinance.

Whether the minimum height for signs needs to be higher and whether more or fewer businesses should be listed on signs were just a few proposed changes that were batted about by council members during the study session.

All council members agreed that the sign ordinance needs to be amended to make such accommodations--but not necessarily with fewer regulations.

“Your typical (sign) applicants want to eliminate ambiguity,” Mayor Sandra L. Genis said. “They don’t want more rules, they just want them to be clear.”

Councilman Peter F. Buffa said he would like to shrink the current 39-page ordinance to one page, while Perry Valentine, the city’s planning manager, submitted two alternative ordinances for consideration: a 23-page version and a 14-page version.

The shorter of the two was based on a model ordinance by the National Electric Sign Assn. and would impose no limits on the height of letters and the number of businesses allowed on a multi-tenant sign, which is three. That version would increase the allowable height for ground signs on 60-foot-wide lots to 25 feet from seven feet.

Under the 23-page proposal, which Valentine and the planning staff recommend, there would be more flexibility in the height of letters and the number of businesses allowed on a multi-tenant sign would increase from three to four.

During a slide presentation, Valentine showed photographs of Harbor Boulevard 20 years ago, before the sign ordinance was adopted in 1973. He compared it to the way the boulevard looks today, when the signs are much smaller.

Valentine said he wants a strict sign code and fears a simpler ordinance could lead to larger signs in the city. The City Council and the Planning Commission plan to vote on the new ordinance sometime in the beginning of October, Valentine said.