A-frame rules to change

By Steve Estes

The Monroe Board of County Commissioners appears ready after more than three years to implement a new sign ordinance.

The final version of a new sign ordinance is on the BOCC agenda for Wednesday and contains proposed changes to the current sandwich board sign rules as well as proposed changes to signs for multi-tenant buildings.

The process began in January 2009 following a code sweep through the Keys in December 2008 during which 150 notices of violation were issued for illegal use of A-frame signs.

Business owners urged the commission then to take a new look at the use of A-frame signs which were banned in the existing sign ordinance. Commissioners agreed and implemented a temporary A-frame sign allowance through June 2010, then extended the allowance again until December 2011 to allow staff time to come up with a new ordinance.

In the current proposal, staff is recommending that the allowance for A-frame signs disappear but that the signs themselves can remain as ground-mounted signs on properties where no ground-mounted sign currently exists.

Continued use of existing A-frame signs will require a permit as a ground-mounted sign, but the new ordinance does not specify a permit fee. Fees will probably be part of the BOCC discussion Wednesday.

Sandwich board signs can be no more than three feet in width and four feet in height, but they may have six-inch legs. They aren’t to be permanently mounted.

Each commercial property with an on-site business is allowed one A-frame sign for every 75 feet of road frontage. If there is more than one business at the location, they must share space if the allowance isn’t sufficient.

All permitted A-frame signs must be on private property. They cannot sit on state or county right-of-way.

When code officers conducted the sweep in 2008, they found 150 unpermitted A-frame signs in use. During a research sweep in June 2011, staff found the same number of A-frame signs in use.

Only about 10 of those were permitted, but the proliferation of A-frames that had concerned some county commissioners when they opened the door three years ago really hasn’t materialized.

Any unpermitted A-frames in use after the county gets the new proposal approved could be subject to enforcement proceedings, although Growth Management Director Christine Hurley has said there will be no retroactive enforcement, getting the 150 cited in 2008 off the hook for that violation.

Current A-frame signs with a permit will be allowed to continue until the use changes or the sign is destroyed. Then the permit would have to be switched to a ground-mounted sign or a new sign erected.

The new proposal also paves the way for increased ground-mounted signage for multi-tenant buildings. Under current rules, the maximum sign face for a property with 75 feet of road frontage is 75 square feet per side. There are multi-tenant commercial buildings in several areas of unincorporated Monroe County, which is the only area affected by the changes, where more than 10 businesses occupy a building with narrow frontage.

Under the proposed regulation, multi-tenant buildings can apply for an administrative variance from the planning director that will allow sign sizes much larger. For instance, at the Marshall Building on Big Pine, because the property line is well off US 1 and the speed limit is posted at 45 miles per hour daytime, a sign could be as large as 330 square feet to accommodate the 10 tenants in the building.

New sign-size possibilities have opened up for multi-tenant and single-tenant buildings by incorporating a speed/distance calculation that allows drivers to digest the information on a sign in time to stop if they desire. The existing ordinance didn’t take into account the extremely wide right-of-way of US 1 through much of the Lower Keys that puts signs up to 100 feet off the center line to remain on private property.

Each variance will be handled on a case-by-case basis, says Transportation Planner Trish Smith.

“If the sign size interferes with visibility of other signs or intrudes on clear-sight triangles at intersections, those things may keep the sizes down,” she said.

The diminutive size of A-frame signs won’t help some small businesses where the right-of-way is deep and the speed high.

There are options for those folks, says Smith.

The Florida Department of Transportation, which controls the US 1 Right-of-way, has been aggressively marketing surplus ROW areas throughout the state.

“Property owners can contact the state DOT and inquire about leasing or purchasing land in front of their building to get signs closer to the road,” said Smith.

The new sign proposal is scheduled to be heard by the BOCC in a public hearing at approximately 3 p.m. Wednesday.