Palm Coast Planning Board Receptive to Ending Longtime Ban On Electronic Business Signs

The Palm Coast Planning Board is receptive to the city ending its 27-year ban on electronic signs for businesses, at least along main commercial roadways.

The city’s planning department is proposing an amendment to the sign ordinance that would allow businesses to build electronic signs within strict regulations. (Drivers already see electronic signs in front of public schools. The School Board does not have to submit to the city’s ban.)

The proposal would normally have gone to the Planning Board first. Community Development Director John Zobler suggested briefing the City Council first “because he wasn’t even sure that council wanted us to proceed with proposing regulations for digital signage,” City Planner Estelle Lens said. “It actually was quite well received by City Council.” That was in March.

The Planning Board got its first look at the ordinance earlier this month, but only in a workshop. It was equally well received, if with a few recommendations. The strictness and clarity of the proposal limited the concerns.

A digital sign is “any sign which has the capability of changing the message content through the use of an electronically controlled device.” The city may regulate location, size, brightness and such things as pixels. It may not regulate content, or even colors.

Like all other signs, digital signs must have a base, or a “monument.” Brightness, the quality or density of the light, how long the message stays up (the city is recommending a minimum of 8 seconds) and the way one message transitions to another (abruptly or fading in and out) are the sort of things the city may regulate. The city administration is recommending against scrolling messages, deeming those distracting to traffic.

Electronic signs would be limited to two zones. One zone would consist of major roads: U.S. 1, Matanzas Woods Parkway, Palm Coast Parkway and State Road 100. On those roads, the electronic portion could take up to 75 percent of the sign.

The other zone would be arterial highways, where electronic signs could take up to 50 percent of the space facing motorists. Those roads include Belle Terre Parkway Old Kings Road North of State Road, Cypress Point Parkway, Seminole Woods Boulevard, Colbert Lane, Old Kings Road south of 100, Palm Harbor Parkway, Pine Lakes Parkway and Florida Park Drive.

Electronic signs would not be allowed on Royal Palms Parkway, Whiteview Parkway, Easthampton Boulevard and Rymfire Drive, since those are still mostly residential.

The planning board raised several questions. For example: cars or trucks that amble down the road, flashing electronic signs. If the sign was flashing in a residential driveway, it could be cited by the city’s code enforcement. “If you want a digital sign on your vehicle, then you won’t be able to have that,” Community Development Manager Phong Nguyen said. Currently, the city does not regulate non-electronic mobile advertising.

Planning Board alternate member Garrett Decker cautioned: “This is literally just saying, Hey, if you drive through my city with a digital sign, you are in violation of our code, and we’re going to write you a ticket. Well, what’s the ticket? What’s the enforcement? So it’s a broad, broad statement that is opening us up to a huge legal liability by trying to say, well, somebody driving through our city is going to get a violation of this.” Decker raised another possibility–a business parking an electronic sign in the middle of a parking lot that is not visible from the road. Is that a violation? “Now we’re going to get into this whole thing of, you’re violating my rights as a property owner and a business owner,” the former cop said.

His recommendation: move forward with the digital sign ordinance, minus the matter of electronic signs on vehicles. That would have to be further studied, he suggested. Nguyen conceded: writing a regulation that could not be enforced would be pointless, he said.

There is also some interest on the Planning Board to explore longer buffers between electronic signs and residential homes–300 feet as opposed to 150.

When the City Council discussed the proposal, Council member Theresa Pontieri was concerned about the potential for too many electronic signs in succession, as could be the case on “Club Row” on Old Kings Road North or at the BJ’s Wholesale strip along State Road 100, with the potential for four successive signs shining up the four outparcel businesses there. “We’re proposing that only the main entrance sign could have a digital display on it,” Lens said. “The other out parcels all can have their regular signage, but not digital display.” But the proposed rule would not stop the different clubs on Old Kings from having their own electronic signs.

As for flashing, blinking window signs in businesses–also a Pontieri concern–the proposed regulation would prohibit “lighting or illuminations that flash, blink, have strobe effects or have video animation, full motion graphics or similar effects,” but neon signs that say “Open” or otherwise advertise other, non-moving, non-flashing messages, would be allowed.

Businesses will be required to get a city permit before putting up a sign. The permits are reviewed by the city’s landscape architect, by the building and planning department and have to meet all the code requirements.

The proposal still has a couple of steps to go. It will return to the Planning Board for a formal recommendation, then move on to the City Council for two readings of the proposed ordinance before it is presumably enacted.