Town Board work session explores new sign regulations

By JEFF MORRIS 

The Town Board discussed various possibilities for updating Bedford’s sign ordinance during a work session at its May 5 meeting.

Supervisor Ellen Calves adjourned the business portion of the meeting and explained that the board cannot have conversations about matters of policy in groups of more than two, because “that means there’s a quorum and we wouldn’t be deliberating in public.” She wanted to have a work session to touch base on the sign ordinance, after questions from the business community about some things that are missing or out of date in the ordinance.

Outdated ordinance

Board member Midge Iorio said she had met with the business community. She said they were concerned with the ordinance being old and difficult to interpret, with a lack of visual examples. They also wanted recognition of differences between the hamlet business districts and the more commercial area on Route 117, and various types of signs that were not contemplated in the current code.

Calves pointed out that the code mostly deals with storefront signage and has a chart that needs to be checked.

“It does require like a law degree to try to figure it out,” she said.

It is also lacking any guidance on what else can be in a store window besides a storefront sign, or consideration of what is able to be seen depending on the location and context of passing traffic.

A compromise idea

Clayton Rose, chair of the Bedford Village Historic District Review Commission, said his group has jurisdiction over signage in that district. He said sandwich boards had been a compromise idea to permit entities to promote events despite a prohibition on temporary signs in the town’s historic districts — lawn signs being the most egregious example. 

Iorio said all the hamlet districts had been enthusiastic about using sandwich boards, seeing them as effective marketing tools, and Calves said there was clearly a desire to include such signs in the code and develop standards for them.

Another area needing clarification was the use of graphics in windows. While the code very clearly says you can have two main storefront signs, Calves said, there are different types of window clings that may not be specific to the name of a business but have become widely available and used. The code limits coverage to 20% of window area.

Such window clings, Calves said, are not clearly regulated in the current code; Iorio said they are more commonly seen along Route 117 than in the hamlets. “I do know that retail is tough and people are trying to get the attention of people driving by,” Calves said. “The sign situation has escalated, in terms of people putting up more and more banners or signs in their windows.” 

She said though they are temporary, they need more regulation; she wasn’t sure if they wanted to tackle that now, or wait until they go ahead with an area plan for the redevelopment of Route 117.

“We want to make sure signs are part of that,” she said. “We do have to figure out what we want to do in the interim.”

Shared space

There was also a question about multiple businesses now sharing space in some stores, and how many signs that meant were permitted. Additionally, lighting and illuminated signs are regulated in the code, but it does not account for advances in LED technology or changing attitudes toward neon.

Calves reviewed the types of signs that are included in and exempted from the current code, and the board discussed instances when art had been displayed in empty storefronts, rather than covering the windows with plain brown paper. 

Giving guidelines

Further talk was focused on other towns’ sign codes, some of which included actual depictions of signs that are allowable. Gordon pointed out they would need to discuss methods of bringing businesses into compliance, or if a revised code would only apply to new signs.

Iorio said she thought businesses would like to comply, and simply need guidance about how to do so. Calves suggested they speak with business owners to glean what their needs are for drawing attention to their businesses “without putting up 25 signs.” She noted the ZBA would prefer not to have to issue variances except in really unusual circumstances, and Gordon said the ZBA’s issue is “it is difficult to turn down a variance when every other storefront in the area also has that number of signs.”

The board will continue to study all these aspects and incorporate them into development of a revised code.