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June 16, 2014 Page 2 2. Applicable Codes. Title XV Land Usage, Chapter 155 Sign Code, Section §155.02 discusses the findings, purpose and intent, and effects of the Sign Code. The City Council in enacting a Sign Code found that: 1. Exterior signs have a substantial impact on the character and quality of the environment; 2. Signs provide an important medium through which individuals may convey a variety of messages; 3. Signs can create traffic hazards, aesthetic concerns and detriments to property values, thereby threatening the public health, safety and welfare; 4. The city's code of ordinances have, since as early as 1983, established standards which would permit businesses in the city a reasonable and equitable opportunity to identify themselves. The regulation of signs is an effort to provide adequate means of expression and to promote the economic viability of the business community; 5. To preserve and promote civic beauty and protect the city and its citizens from a proliferation of signs of a type, size, location and character that would adversely impact upon the aesthetics of the community and threaten the health, safety and welfare of the community; and 6. To preserve and protect the value of land and buildings, and to preserve and protect landscapes. The purpose and intent is not to regulate the message displayed on any sign; nor to regulate any building design or any display not defined as a sign, or any sign which cannot be viewed from outside a building. The purpose is to: 1. Regulate the number, location, size, type, illumination and other physical characteristics of signs within the city in order to promote the public health, safety and welfare; 2. Maintain, enhance and improve the aesthetic environment of the city by preventing visual clutter that is harmful to the appearance of the community; 3. Improve the visual appearance of the city while providing for effective means of communication, consistent with constitutional guarantees and the city's goals of public safety and aesthetics; 4. Provide for fair and consistent enforcement of the sign regulations set for herein under the zoning authority of the city. As a result, the effect of the city's Sign Code, was to allow signs to be erected, mounted, displayed or maintained in the city if it is in conformance with the provisions of the Sign Code regulations. More specifically, is to: 1. Allow a wide variety of sign types in commercial zones, and more limited variety of signs in other zoning districts subject to the standards set forth in this sign ordinance; 2. Allow certain small, unobtrusive signs incidental to the principal use of a site in all zoning districts when in compliance with the requirements of this sign ordinance; 3. Prohibit signs whose location, size, type, illumination or other physical characteristics negatively affect the environment and where the communication can be accomplished by means having a lesser impact on the environment and the public health, safety and welfare; and 4. Provide for the enforcement of the provisions of this sign ordinance.