03-27-2006 CC - Laserfiche WebLink

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Item No: 7B Meeting Date: March 27, 2006 Type of Business: CB Administrator Review : ____ City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: James Ericson, Community Development Director Item Title/Subject: Second Reading and Adoption of Ordinance 769, an Ordinance Amending Chapter 1008 of the Municipal Code Relating to Signs and Billboards Introduction: Pursuant to the agreement between the City of Mounds View and Clear Channel Outdoor, Inc., certain revisions and updates are necessary to bring the City Code into compliance relative to the agreement, which calls for the relocation of four billboards from the former golf course site to other locations within the City. To accomplish this, Chapter 1008 of the Municipal Code relating to Signs and Billboards needs to be amended relating to the duration of Interim Use Permits, permitted locations of billboards in the community, spacing between billboards and billboard height. At the same time, staff asked the City Attorney to review our Sign Code and provide an opinion regarding consistency with First Amendment issues relative to recent metro area lawsuits. Kennedy and Graven has concluded their review and has provided feedback regarding both the billboard revisions as well as proposed First Amendment revisions. Staff has prepared Ordinance 769 which incorporates these revisions. The changes to the Sign Code are summarized, section by section, in the report below. First Reading: The City Council held the first reading of this ordinance on March 13, 2006. Much discussion was generated regarding three specific issues--proposed locations on County Road 10 north of the Silver Lake Road intersection, sign heights and the duration of the interim use permits. Regarding the first issue, the Council indicated some concern and reluctance to permit billboards north of the County 10 and Silver Lake Road intersection. The area is predominately residential and as such the introduction of a billboard would be out of character for the area. The Council directed that these locations be eliminated. Clear Channel understood the Council’s opposition to these sites and was not disagreeable to the elimination of the indicated sites. The ordinance and illustration map have been amended accordingly. The Council held some reservations about increasing billboard sign heights across the board to 45 feet. The 45-foot maximum was requested by Clear Channel to compensate for visibility issues they anticipate encountering on the relocated sites. The Council asked Clear Channel to conduct a visibility analysis to more precisely determine what the actual heights would need to be to maintain adequate visibility. At the time of the writing of this report, that information had yet to be submitted to staff. The Council suggested allowing 45 feet along 35W only rather than anywhere. Such a change would be easy to accommodate if the Council would wish to restrict billboard heights in certain areas, and the ordinance may be adopted subject to such an amendment.