ORANGE : City Weighs Revised Sign Ordinance

Business leaders this week persuaded the City Council to hold public hearings on a proposal to allow banners and sandwich-board signs to become year-round fixtures.

City codes now allow businesses to display banners for as long as 45 days during any calendar year to advertise special promotions. A-frame sandwich boards are prohibited.

A task force of four business owners joined with Chamber of Commerce officials to draft a new sign ordinance that would allow both banners and A-frame signs on a permanent basis, Brent Hunter, executive director of the chamber, wrote in a letter to the city.

The group held merchant meetings to muster support and reached “a consensus of the affected business community” in support of the idea, Hunter wrote.

The recommendation, he wrote, represents “a balance and compromise between the wide-open, anything-goes situation that we have recently experienced and the overly strict ordinance currently on the books.”

In 1993 and 1994, the city passed resolutions allowing banners to be up year-round, but it has taken no action on the issue for 1995, according to a report by the Community Development Department.

The council agreed Tuesday to send the proposal to the Planning Commission, which would schedule public hearings. The proposal would then return to the City Council for a second round of hearings, said Jack McGee, community development director.