12-14-2005 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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NORTHWEST ASSOCIATED CONSULTANTS, INC. 4800 Olson Memorial Highway, Suite 202, Golden Valley, MN 55422 Telephone: 763.231.2555 Facsimile: 763.231.2561 planners@macplanning.com MEMORANDUM TO: Joel Hanson FROM: Stephen Grittman DATE: December 9, 2005 RE: Little Canada — Sign Ordinance Issues FILE NO: 758.10 - 05.07 Background and Analysis Following concerns about sign regulations raised by potential billboard applications in other communities, the City Council called for a moratorium relating to the issuance of new sign permits. The moratorium is intended to provide time to analyze the City's ordinance, and ensure that the City's zoning objectives with relation to signs were proper and would meet legal scrutiny. There has been a significant amount of material generated on this issue in differing forums, including the Cities that were facing direct legal challenges (Eden Prairie and Hopkins), the League of Minnesota Cities, and other Twin Cities area communities that were studying the issue and making their own amendments. The legal challenges raised in Hopkins and Eden Prairie may be summarized as an attempt to have a court throw out an entire ordinance based on the claim that the Ordinance is an unlawful restraint on free speech. The theory has been that the Ordinances in question illegally distinguished signs based on the content of their messages. If the ordinance is thrown out, then the applicant could erect a sign that would be without any restriction, presumably much larger than otherwise allowed by the Ordinance. Content -based speech regulation is usually unconstitutional. The City has a very high burden if it regulates based on content, requiring a "compelling government interest" in the need to regulate, and that the regulation is "narrowly tailored" to achieve that objective. The District Court in the Hopkins case stated that regular "health, safety, and welfare" interests may be "significant" but not "compelling ". Moreover, the Court suggested that Hopkins' ordinance was not "narrowly tailored ", since this requires that the City uses the "least restrictive means" of regulating.