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New Port Richey's sign ordinance, intended to bring continuity in its downtown district, is under attack.
That is not unexpected. The owners and operators of downtown buildings aren't particularly fond of the notion of paying to change their signs even if it is intended to shrink the size and number of placards and to help beautify the main business corridor.
What is unexpected is the source of the attack. New Port Richey's City Council is undermining its own ordinances by generously granting variances, which allow the illegal signs to remain.
The ordinance adopted in the 1990s, included a five-year grace period, which expired last year. On June 1, the council granted variances to the owners of a pair of buildings with offending signs. It also tabled a vote on a third request in hopes of working out a compromise. The applicant, however, must be wondering: Why compromise? Everybody else got what they wanted.
A council majority allowed John and Carolyn Herig to keep a too-tall pole sign at the former Texaco station at 5731 Main St., and agreed to let the Main Street Professional building at 5347 Main St. keep all of its existing outdoor signs. The council tabled a request to allow multiple outdoor signs for the medical office building at 5307 Main St.
That building isn't even close to conformity. It has five exterior signs, one of which is on a side wall. Two of the signs measure more than 80 square feet and one is more than 200 square feet. The ordinance prohibits signs on side walls and limits exterior signs to three, none of which can exceed 50 square feet.
The city's Development Review Committee of professional staff members recommended denying all three variance requests. The Land Development Review Board, a citizen's advisory panel, recommended approving all three. Some of the justification bordered on the ridiculous.
Minutes from the land development meeting state, "The applicants' concern is for the safety of the patients since it would be very dangerous to change the signage and have these elderly people driving to find the doctors."
The hysteria didn't stop there. The application for the variance includes a plea that deaths will result near the intersection of U.S. 19 and Main Street and ambulances and fire trucks will be called to the corner continuously and be unavailable for other calls in a timely manner. Wow. Those illegal signs sure are a public service.
If the people at 5307 Main St. are so concerned about confused elderly patients, they might want to unify the building's identification. Outdoor signs on the building identify it as Main Street Medical Plaza, Pasco Cardiology Center and Pasco Medical Center. Well, which is it?
A City Council majority - only council member Tom Finn opposed all three requests - should consider a more imperative point. What message has the city just sent to the businesses that complied with the ordinance limiting size and number of signs?
"As the author of that sign ordinance, I'm disappointed. I understand some variances are merited when they are minor, but the spirit of the sign ordinance should be taken seriously," said County Commissioner Peter Altman, a former mayor who now is investing in downtown.
Altman said he has obtained a demolition permit to take down the sign for "Only the Best" restaurant, a nonconforming sign previously authorized by the council.
Business owners should follow Altman's lead. And City Council members shouldn't get careless and begin to undo the hard work that preceded their terms in office.
New Port Richey has spent millions of dollars beautifying its downtown core. Fewer and smaller signs add to the desirable decorum.