A. This chapter is intended to create the legal framework for a comprehensive and balanced system to regulate signage that will preserve free speech and promotion of commerce. Furthermore, this chapter is intended to minimize any visual clutter that is harmful to the Village's appearance and to promote safety by limiting signage that could potentially have a negative impact on traffic and pedestrian safety. With these purposes in mind, it is the intent of this chapter to authorize the use of signage to:
1. Promote the free flow of traffic along the Village's arterials and collectors and to protect pedestrians and motorists from injury and property damage which may be fully or partially attributable to cluttered, distracting, or illegible signage.
2. Promote the use of signage that is aesthetically pleasing and of appropriate scale that sensitively integrates into the surrounding context and landscape. This chapter recognizes the difference in context between a commercial arterial and the Village's downtown.
3. Provide for functional flexibility, encourage variety and to create an incentive to relate signage to basic principles of good design.
4. Assure that public benefits derive from expenditures of public funds for the improvement and beautification of streets and other public structures and spaces are protected by exercising reasonable controls over the character and design of graphic structures.
5. Provide for an improved visual environment and to protect prominent corridors within the community by authorizing the use of street signage that is:
a. Compatible with surroundings;
b. Appropriate to the activity that displays them;
c. Expressive of the identity of the individual activities and the community as a whole; and
d. Legible in the circumstances in which they are seen. (Ord. 17-06-20, 6-12-2017)