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Article I. General Provisions
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(1) Intent. Signs have a strong visual impact on the character and quality of our community. As a prominent part of the scenery, they attract or repel the viewing public, affect the safety of vehicular traffic, and their suitability or appropriateness helps to set the tone for our community. The City relies upon its physical setting and beauty to attract commerce and aesthetic considerations assume economic value. The intent of this chapter is to protect and enhance both the City’s residential character and its economic base using appropriate and aesthetic signage.

(2) Purpose. The purpose of this chapter is to promote the public health, safety, and welfare through a comprehensive system of reasonable, effective, consistent, content-neutral, and nondiscriminatory sign standards and requirements that:

(a) Promote and accomplish the goals and policies of the City’s comprehensive plan and zoning code, and the City Council’s vision, mission, and goals statement;

(b) Provide minimum standards to safeguard life, health, property, and public welfare, and promote traffic safety by controlling the design, quality of materials, construction, illumination, size, location, and maintenance of signs and sign structures and discouraging excessive numbers of signs;

(c) Recognize free speech rights by regulating signs in a content-neutral manner;

(d) Promote the free flow of traffic and protect pedestrians and motorists from injury and property damage caused by or which may be fully or partially attributable to cluttered, distracting, and/or illegible signage;

(e) Promote a positive visual image of the City and protect the beauty of the City’s built environment by encouraging signs that are compatible with the architectural style, characteristics, and scale of the building to which they may be attached; appropriate to the size of the subject property and amount of street frontage adjacent to the subject property; and compatible with adjacent buildings and businesses;

(f) Protect property values, the local economy, and the quality of life by preserving and enhancing the appearance of the City’s streetscape;

(g) Provide consistent sign design standards;

(h) Protect and encourage creative and innovative approaches to signage and signs that are of a quality design, pleasing in appearance, and are appropriate in size, materials, and illumination to the surrounding neighborhood or commercial district;

(i) Provide an improved visual environment for the citizens and visitors of the City;

(j) Adopt clear, understandable regulations that will assure equal protection and fair treatment under the law through consistent application of the regulations and consistent enforcement of this chapter;

(k) Balance both public and private business needs with the specific objectives of creating a community with an unmatched quality of life and a strong focus on economic well-being, aesthetics, community and family, the environment, and public infrastructure;

(l) Support and enhance the economic well-being of all businesses within the City and recognize the needs of all businesses to identify their premises and advertise their products and services; and

(m) Recognize that the aesthetic value of the total environment affects economic values and that an unrestricted proliferation of signs detracts from the economic value of the community. (Ord. 08-18 § 2 (Exh. A))