CC MINUTES 12081987 - Laserfiche WebLink

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1 Mark Gilbertson, Rapid Oil Change Project Manager, reiterated many of 2 the justifications he saw for the sign' s retention, which he had 3 expressed during the two Commission considerations of his proposal, 4 including that: 5 *the sign had not proved detrimental to the neighborhood up to 6 now; 7 *Rapid Oil would be losing the $2 ,500 the sign had originally 8 cost them as well as the $500 it would cost to remove it; 9 *a unique hardship had been established when the County condemned 10 and took the land where the gas pumps stood on 37th Avenue for a 11 right turn lane causing the business to lose those revenues; 12 *future losses could be great if the station is left without any 13 signage at all when the conversion to a drive-through caused 14 the business to temporarily remove the existing signage on the 15 building and to shut down completely for 3 to 4 weeks. 16 Mr. Gilbertson indicated he had joined the company after they had 17 acquired that property and didn' t know whether they had been 18 compensated for the loss of gas business. Councilmember Ranallo told 19 him the City had looked at that property for a liquor store in 1982 20 and 1983 before Rapid Oil bought it and knew at that time how exten- •21 sive the loss of land on that corner would be. He said he was certain 22 Rapid Oil went into the project knowing just as much. 23 The Councilmember then indicated he saw no reason for not accepting 24 the Planning Commission' s recommendations that the pylon should be 25 removed although he thought they might have been a little too generous 26 when it came to giving them until June to take it down. 27 Mr. Childs recalled that when Rapid Oil had first come in they had 28 talked about taking out all the gas pumps but when they found out that 29 they would lose the sign if they did so, decided to keep the gas 30 operation. He agreed with Councilmember Enrooth' s perception that 31 "the sign was probably a lot more valuable to them than the gas 32 sales ever were. " 33 Mr. Gilbertson acknowledged that St. Anthony didn' t have too many 34 pylon signs, but he wondered if Rapid Oil' s couldn't be replaced with 35 a monument type sign like TCF' s just north of him. The City Manager 36 told him the wall signage he had on the building now was already under 37 variance because it was too excessive under the ordinance. 38 Noting the statistics Mr. Gilbertson had quoted which said a business 39 couldn' t expect to get 1000 of its business back for at least a year 40 if it had to close for any period of time at all, Councilmember 41 Enrooth suggested the grace period the Commission had recommended be �42 extended until October, 1988. 14