Sign rules meetings next week

Monroe County’s planning staff will be hosting a public input workshop on possible revisions to the county’s sign regulations Monday, May 11 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Big Pine Academy.

Two other workshops will be held as well next week, Tuesday at the Harvey Government Center in Key West and Wednesday at the new Murray E. Nelson Government Center in Key Largo.

County Planner Steven Biel has been tapped as the team leader for the sign ordinance revision process.

He plans to discuss current regulations and possible revisions to those, including vehicles on signs, off-premise signs, sandwich boards, banners, on-site directional signs and monument signs. A county release stated that a representative from Code Enforcement and a representative from the Florida Department of Transportation might be in attendance at the meetings.

The planning staff was directed by the county commission in January to take a new look at the existing sign regulations after an uproar from small business owners, primarily from the Lower Keys. That uproar from business owners followed a code enforcement sweep in December that targeted violations in the US 1 right-of-way, most of which related to signs in some form.

Annie Rodamer, owner of Sugarloaf Food Company on Summerland Key, was one of the most outspoken against the sign sweep. She said she lost more than $800 in business in two days after she was forced to move her small sandwich sign back from the highway.

She and more than a dozen other business owners from the Lower Keys lambasted the county commission about the sign rules. The Board of County Commissioners agreed to a six-month hiatus on enforcement of those who were given violation notices during the sweep, or until the county approved a new ordinance.

That six months runs out in July, and the public workshops are the first step toward implementing a new sign ordinance. The current ordinance has been in place for 20 years.

Growth Management Director Drew Trivette two weeks ago said that it was probably going to take longer than the six months to produce a new document. He also admitted that no draft document had been prepared for public perusal as yet.

Staff plans to take a draft ordinance to the Development Review Committee June 9 and to the county Planning Commission June 24, with a potential second date on July 8. They plan to have a revision before the BOCC at the July 15 meeting.

Biel says that staff will host a presentation of the six major sign issues to be addressed during the workshops, along with a presentation that defines the three types of signs dealt with by county code, a summary of the existing code and a pictorial of good and bad examples of local signage.

Issues with the usage of US 1 right-of-way will be discussed, as well as particulars of the county’s attempt to qualify US 1 as a federal Scenic Highway.

Planners will open the floor to feedback from those in attendance and outline what steps will be taken in the future toward possible revision of the sign regulations.

Local business owners, particularly those along US 1 in the Lower Keys, have been critical of the county’s sign rules for years. They argue that because the right-of-way is so large through the Lower Keys that the county doesn’t permit enough sign space to make them visible to passing motorists.

According to the National Sign Manufacturers Association, it takes letters 10 inches in height to be readable for normal visual acuity with maximum impact at 100 feet. The right-of-way along US 1 throughout much of the Lower Keys is 100 feet in either direction from the center line. That same sign lettering, however, would be visible to the passing motorist for only 1.7 seconds traveling at 40 miles per hour.

In many areas, road signs are limited by the county to 24 inches in height, meaning that a double-deck lettering scheme would be about 10 inches in height.

Most of those rules just don’t allow a passing vehicle to get a look at a business sign for enough time to decide to stop in and browse, said owners.

Several local business owners have suggested that the county allow more space on building mounted signs than is currently allowed and relax the regulations for permitting building-mounted signs.

Those signs are well back from the highway in most cases and present no danger to motorists, one of the reasons FDOT gives for being stringent on roadside signs.

They have also suggested allowing larger signage, even if further back, for those businesses not located on US 1, either through a cluster approach or an intersection formation.

FDOT has begun an enforcement sweep of its own along the north side of US 1 in Big Pine, preparing for the oncoming widening project early next year. Most of the widening for US 1 will take place on the north side.

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