The purpose of this chapter is to provide minimum standards to safeguard life, health, property, and public welfare, and to preserve the character of the City by regulating the size, height, design, quality of materials, construction, location, lighting, and maintenance of all signs and sign structures not enclosed within a building, to accomplish the following:
A. To protect and enhance the character of residential neighborhoods and business areas, open views and vistas, and property values by prohibiting obtrusive and incompatible signs;
B. To provide a reasonable and comprehensive system of sign controls;
C. To encourage signs which are well-designed, balanced, and pleasing in appearance, and to provide incentive and latitude for variety, good design relationship, spacing, and location;
D. To encourage a desirable urban character while minimizing clutter and while recognizing the need for signs as a major form of communication;
E. To provide for fair and equal treatment of sign users;
F. To provide for a reasonable period of time for the elimination of nonconforming signs;
G. To promote public safety by providing that official traffic regulation devices be easily visible and free from any nearby visual obstructions, including blinking signs, excessive number of signs, or signs that in any way resemble official signs;
H. To eliminate traffic safety hazards to pedestrians and motorists posed by off-site signs bearing commercial messages;
I. To generally limit commercial signage to on-site locations in order to protect the aesthetic environment from the visual clutter associated with the unrestricted proliferation of signs while also providing adequate channels of communication to the public;
J. To allow the communication of information for both commercial and non-commercial purposes without regulating the content of non-commercial messages;
K. To allow the expression of political, religious, and other non-commercial speech at all times;
L. To protect the investment in property made by persons who choose to live, work or conduct business within the City;
M. To maintain the peace and tranquility of residential zones and neighborhoods by generally forbidding commercial signs at private residences while allowing residents the opportunity, within reasonable limits, to express political, religious, and other non- commercial messages from their homes; and
N. To accommodate the need for signs to direct members of the public to various destinations and places, activities, and uses, in order to provide for maximum public convenience.
Ord. 2443