Despite some resistance, the county's sign ordinance is being enforced to good effect.
By JAMES THORNER
Published March 21, 2004
WESLEY CHAPEL - Driving down State Road 54 between Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills, you can't miss the signs of the past.
There's the mini storage sign on two poles. And a board advertising a welding supply company next to a sign atop a pillar trying to lure you into a car wash.
Ralph's Travel Park wants your business, judging from his pole sign. So does the hand-painted day care sign down the street.
But across the highway on SR 54, The Home Depot, despite being larger than those other businesses combined, markets itself with less: A square illuminated monument sign with a company orange and white logo.
Home Depot opened this year under the provisions of Pasco County's 11/2-year-old sign ordinance. The other businesses' signs predate the ordinance.
The difference - the clean lines of the Home Depot versus the relative clutter next door - is striking.
The sign ordinance was one of a trio of laws designed to clean up the appearance of a county in the throes of suburbanization. Ordinances mandating more trees and landscaping, designed to buffer and beautify businesses and homes, also won approval about the same time.
"All these ordinances coming together are making Pasco a much more desirable county from a scenic perspective," said Charles Hise, a member of the group Scenic Pasco, which lobbied the county against giving the Home Depot a bigger sign last year.
New stores and businesses, even the large super center-style stores that occupy a city block, must live with ground-hugging monument signs usually no taller than 11 feet. Pole and pylon signs are banned.
The county used to limit wall signs on the side of buildings to 300 square feet. The law cut that in half to 150 square feet. Also curtailed are a slew of less permanent signs such as balloons, banners, pennants, cardboard "snipe" signs and wheeled portable signs.
To be sure, you'll still see pole signs rising beside new shopping centers, thanks to a grandfathering clause in the law.
The Shoppes at New Tampa, a center in Wesley Chapel on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, was approved before the ordinance passed. So poles proliferate.
But upcoming retailers such as a Sam's Club and Buddy Foster Chevrolet dealership on State Road 56 and a Wal-Mart Supercenter near SR 54 and Bruce B. Downs have to obey the smaller-is-better rules.
Businesses, in some cases grudgingly, are absorbing the lesson that the slap-it-up-and-they-will-come philosophy is kaput.
Collier Commons shopping center in Land O'Lakes broke ground under the impression it could erect pole signs to better capture the gaze of passing commuters for anchor tenant Publix.
It has had to make do with pinkish concrete block monument signs with horses, a theme that reflects a site that used to be an equestrian farm.
County administrators rejected developers' request to enlarge monument signs but gave Publix a break on some wall signs for easier legibility.
"Your big anchors trying to get exposure is always an issue,"' said George Trujillo, who leases the center for owner Primerica. "But I don't think any anchor will make coming to a shopping center contingent on signage."
For all its success since it opened in January, the Home Depot on SR 54 tried to exempt itself from the law last summer, arguing the 3-foot-high limit on letter size would be lost on a 635-foot-long store.
County Administrator John Gallagher suggested the store's colorful trademark was catchy enough not to need amplification.
In fact, the smaller wall sign is easily readable from SR 54, at least for an adult with good eyesight. The full parking lot seems to belie the supposed business dampening effects of the 3-foot letters.
"There's always resistance to change: "This is the way a corporation wants it, and this is the way we want it,' " Hise said. "But I'm pleased the way the county is starting to look."
Some Scenic Pasco members were displeased with grandfathering that lets thousands of messy signs stay on major roads such as U.S. 19.
Kathryn Starkey of Scenic Pasco laments that new businesses obeying the law on U.S. 19 lose visibility to large ugly signs of their pre-existing neighbors.
"It's difficult to get it 100 percent right on the first shot," Starkey said of the sign law.
And then there's the loophole, beloved of car dealerships, to festoon lots and buildings with American flags. Ever cautious about treading on First Amendment/freedom of speech issues, the county has looked the other way.
A Cumberland Farms gas station and mini mart in Land O'Lakes planted 19 flags on its roof with impunity, while county officers asked a nearby barber shop to remove a small wooden roadside sign. "It's patriotic, right?" quipped assistant county attorney Barb Wilhite.
A group of sign companies stung by the law tried to change the ordinance last fall. County commissioners would have none of it.
The Save Our Signs Coalition asked commissioners to allow banners and temporary signs and larger wall and window signs. In the words of Commissioner Pat Mulieri, the changes amounted to torpedoing the law, not tweaking it.
Improving the appearance of businesses is necessarily slow, said Dennis Smith, a Wesley Chapel member of Scenic Pasco who also sits on the Meadow Pointe Community Development District board.
But it's starting to happen. A Burger King that recently closed on SR 54 in Land O'Lakes is being replaced by an Arby's. The illuminated Burger King pole sign is mothballed. Arby's sign will have to hug the ground.
Smith joined the battle over signs when a SuperTarget store outside his neighborhood raised a pylon sign. Meanwhile, stores a half mile down the road in Hillsborough County were building smaller monument signs.
"It's a little early to see a significant change. It's going to take years until people can really notice a difference," Smith said.
"Five years from now when you drive up Bruce B. Downs, it's going to look a lot different from U.S. 19."
