Sign rules to BOCC January

By Steve Estes

Monroe County will not have a new sign ordinance in place by its self imposed deadline of Dec. 31.

A temporary allowance for the use of A-frame signs along US 1 is due to sunset on that date, but the Board of County Commissioners won’t act on new sign rules until its January meeting. And approval from the state is expected to take an additional 30 to 60 days.

During that small window, the ordinance in place today, which allows A-frame signs under limited circumstances, code compliance officers will not be conducting sweeps for potential violations, says County Growth Management Director.

“Whether that happens later depends on what decisions are made by the Board of County Commissioners,” said Hurley.

County staff is still recommending that the allowance for A-frame signs sunset when the new ordinance goes into affect, but they are delivering other options for the BOCC to consider.

Those options include allowing the allowance to disappear, meaning A-frame signs would become a thing of the past on Keys’ roadways. One option is that permitted A-frames be allowed to continue until no longer in use. The final option is that the A-frame allowance continue.

“When the commission put the A-frame policy in place, the goal was to permit the signs and control their usage,” said Hurley. “Many of the A-frame signs now in use do not have permits.”

A recent staff survey counted 150 A-frame signs in use along US 1 in unincorporated Monroe County. Of those, less than 10 at that time had current permits.

Many of the A-frame signs currently in use couldn’t be permitted by the county anyway.

“The right-of-way along US 1 is owned by the state,” said Hurley. “We cannot permit signs in the state right-of-way.”

And just because county officials don’t plan to do enforcement sweeps against A-frame signs during the time the ordinance may no longer be in effect, nothing stops the state from cracking down on signs in the right-of-way.

“Even if the commission votes to allow continued use, it won’t be use in the right-of-way,” said Hurley.

Hurley spoke to the Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce Monday night and outlined other changes the new sign ordinance portends.

“If the right-of-way is very deep, as it is in much of the Lower Keys, the one-size-fits-all regulations we had don’t fit,” said Hurley. “What staff did was come up with a very innovative program that takes into account the posted speed limit and the distance from the travel lane to allow variances on regular ground-mounted signs so that businesses can get better exposure.”

The new proposal also contains a variance procedure for multi-tenant units where the number of units is out of ratio with the allowed sign face area.

There are multi-unit commercial buildings in the Lower Keys with 10 to 11 tenants, but only enough US 1 frontage to allow for 100 square feet of sign face in each direction.

The new variance procedure would allow for those “contributing” factors to be taken into account without the need to prove a hardship, said Hurley.

The sign ordinance will be heard for the final time by the county planning commission on Dec. 1 at 10 a.m. at the Marathon Government Center. Those recommendations will go to the BOCC in January.