City ponders sign changes

SANDPOINT — The amended law will be an across-the-board change on how local businesses may advertise.

Banners are also included.

The amended banner and sandwich board ordinance — if it passes the muster of residents, business owners and council members — will prohibit what some city administrators call a battlefield of banners and boards advertising everything from cell phones to cappuccino.

Changes to the ordinance will be presented at a public hearing set for June 15 during the regular 5:30 p.m. planning commission meeting.

The hearing is one of two scheduled this month. The following day, June 16, a 5:30 p.m. hearing at city hall will address changes to the city’s zoning regulations.

 The addition to the zoning code, if approved, would break the city into sections according to what type of construction best suits the area. It seeks to regulate the type of new construction allowed downtown, in the main business district and in residential and industrial neighborhoods.

“It is more consistent with the vision and directions of the comprehensive plan,” Jeremy Grimm, city planner, said.

New growth in the business district will align with the new construction on Fifth Street and Cedar Avenue.

“Buildings built to the street with parking to the side or the rear, store fronts and display windows that will make it more interesting and authentic to pedestrians,” Grimm said.

The banner and sandwich board amendments if approved will allow either one banner or one sandwich board per business.

The amendments were created after a former council member protested the original ordinance that allows businesses to hang banners or place boards on the sidewalks for 30 days.

The city did not enforce the ordinance, former council member Michael Boge said.

“Why even have the darned thing if there are no teeth in it,” Boge said.

He spent more than 40 minutes one day shooting photos of banners and signboards — a little more than 40 images altogether. He took the photos to the city, he said.

The banners and signboards were still there more than a month later, he said.

“If they were going to make a law they should follow through on it,” he said. “There was no follow through. The big question is, will they follow through.”

Grimm said the plethora of banners and boards is unsightly.

“You almost get this arms race of who can have the brightest and loudest sign,” he said. “It becomes noisy. You almost don’t see any of them, because there are so many.”

Most of them are illegal, he said, because they have been there for months.

“It’s nearly impossible to know when they went up, or how many days the have had them up,” he said.