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PC 03-24-76 CITY OF CUPERTINO, STATE OF CALIFORNIA 10300 Torre Avenue, Cupertino Telephone: 252-4505 PC-223 Page 1 MINUTES OF THE ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION HELD ON MARCH 24, 1976 IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL, CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA SALUTE TO THE FLAG The meeting was opened at 7:35 p.m. by Chairman Gatto with the Salute to the Flag. ROLL CALL Commissioners present: Adams, Cooper (7:45), Woodward and Chairman Gatto Commissioners absent: None Staff present: Planning Director James Sisk City Attorney Kilian Guests present: ASAC Chairman Koenitzer and Members Sallan, Dressler PUISLIC HEARING: 1. CITY OF CUPERTINO: Public Hearing to consider an amendment to Sign Ordinance No. 353 establishing new regulations for signs. First Hearing continued. Chairman review. document Council. Gatto announced this was a continuation of Sign Ordinance He said the commissioners proposed to go through the and then pass their recommendations along to the City Planning Director Sisk referred to revised Draft Sign Ordinance. This latest amendment was made available for public use during the meeting. He announced copies could be purchased. Mr. Sisk also noted that changes suggested by the Commission had been italicized. SECTION 1 With regard to (d), Comm. Cooper was answered that provisions for insuring maintenance and bringing non-conforming signs up to standard had been included in a later section. PC-22 3 Page 2 MINillES OF THE MARCH 24, 1976 ADJ. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING SECTION 2 Comm. Adams raised the question of how 2.07.1 should be interpreted. Planning Director Sisk explained the intent was to discourage cover- ing wall with sign. He said perhaps more detailed guidelines should be developed. Comm. Woodward said the visual impact of the sign would be the deciding factor. ASAC Member Dressler felt it should be restricted to having each part computed. Chairman Gatto asked ASAC Members Dressler and Koenitzer to join the discussion. After further discussion it was agreed that an example should be included under 2.07.1 which would clarify intent. Under 2.18, Comm. Adams noted the last line should read...... "which was not installed with a valid. ....". SECTION 3 City Attorney Kilian suggested changing topic of 3.02 from Severability to Additional Conditions. Under 3.05.5, the second line should read .... "shall have the authority to require modification of the sign...." 3.05.7 should read...... "by the Planning Director or a decision by the Architectural and Site Approval Committee shall do so under provisions in Section 11 of this ordinance." ASAC Member Dressler raised the discussion on whether the Planning Director should have the authority to approve signs at the staff level. Comm. Cooper noted there should be a provision for including review by ASAC on sign programs for existing planned developments. Mr. Dressler noted that having signs approved by Planning Director Sisk was not a recommendation of the SRC. He said he was opposed to this change. Mr. Frank Mulkern, Chamber of Commerce, said having ASAC reviewing sign applications was one of the largest bones of contention. Businessmen did not feel that with ordinance written in such detail it should be necessary to incur the delay of going to ASAC. If the sign conforms to ordinance, then staff should be able to approve it. MINUTES OF THE MARCH 24, 197b ADJ. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING PC-223 Page :3 Mr. Carl Heymann of California Electric Sign Users said ne had just recei ved the document, but from glancing through it he fel t it was confusing and ambiguous. He cited 3.04.2 and 3.05.2. Chairman Gatto clarified 3.04.2 by noting it gave the Planning Director authority to refer any applications to ASAC if there were any questions to conformity to ordinance. In 3.05.2, tile last sentence was changed to clarify intent. "If such applications are reviewed by the Architectural and Site Approval it shall be in conj tmction with the review of the project." ASAC Member Dr..ssler again raised the point of having the Planning Director approve signs. He spoke to maximums not always being allowed. lie asked how Mr. Sisk would speak. to the code. Mr. Sisk said difficult decisions would end up being made by H-Control anyway. Chairman Gatto reviewed discussion held on this issue at previous meeting. ASAC Member Sallan asked why it was felt it was more desirable than leaving with present format. Chairman Gatto explained their reasoning, noting that from a work load point, it would be less of a problem. Me. Sallan said it was an increase in responsibility. The problems will arise wilen the issues are not clearly defined. She questioned having a single person seeing all possibilities as opposed to five people. Mr. Dressler said the existing conditions may be a little cumbersome but tne results are wortll it. Comm. Adams ascertained none of the ASAC members had listened to the tapes of the preceding meeting. C()mm. Woodward said if t,he maximums had not been wanted, the numbers should have been lowered. He said there are some signs in the City that are not unpleasing but are over the maximums allowed. ASAC Chairman Koenitzer said it was very hard to write aesthetics into an ordinance. He noted colors were not addressed, but yet this is one of the IDOse important factors in the appearance of a sign. Chairman Gatto noted the specifics of numbers would be addressed in later sections. ASAC Member Dressler said he wanted to be sure the Planning JJirector would continue with the same strict concern as the ASAC. Mr. Mulkern said the businessman was directly effected by the ordinance and should have some input. This third draft seems to be a good compromise. Subjectivity is what will make a sign ordinanc a disaster. The businessmen do not love this document but can live with it. lie said the business community does not agree with half of what ASAC demands. They feel the staff can read this and interpret it without ruining aesthetics of commtmity. PC-223 Page 4 MINUTES OF THE MARŒ 24,1976 ADJ. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Chairman Gatto read 3.0S.4 to clarify that the Planning Director would not be automatically approving any sign within the maximums. Mr. Walter Ward, Vallco Village, said the ordinance should be a tool of professionals. He presented a hypthetical case where a New York representative would have to make three trips to California to be heard. His recommendation would be that numbers be changed if they fel t it necessary but the ordinance should have some bel1evablli ty. Comm. Cooper said she wanted to answer Mr. Mulkern that the signs affected the citizenry as well as the businessmen and they should be represented also. ASAC Member Sallan noted the SRC was selected to represent a cross- section of the community and what came out of the committee was a majority opinion. It was decided to continue going through the ordinance and coming back to Section 3. SECTION 4 Comm. Cooper asked if it was mandatory for all establishments to post their addresses. She felt it would be helpful if it were mandatory that all addresses had to be displayed. This was discussed. The topic of 4.U4 was changed from House Numbers to Street Addresses. Mr. Ward said he failed to see why a sign if it were not visible from the street should not be illuminated. After discussion, it was decided to eliminate "which are not illuminated" from 4.01 and to change 4.06 to read, "... are less than four ~4) sq. ft. in area and are not visible from the street. Such signs...." SEGrION S There were no comments. SECTION 6 After discussion on 6.03, Comm. Woodward proposed the following be added as a preface. "All shopping centers shall have a sign program and the following requirements will apply. Reference 7.13." MIN1TrES OF THE MARCH 24, 197b ADJ. PLANNING COMMISSION PC-223 Page 5 In the first line of 6.02.1, the word "one" was deleted. after Comm. Woodward noted this would restrict the address numbers being painted on curbs. Under 6.03.1. line 7. the wording "usable sign frontage" was questione It was suggested it should read "ouilding frontage". ASAC Member Sallan explained the reasoning behind the word "usable". Chairman Gatto noted the basic intent is to proportion sign relative to tenant frontage. "Usable" sign area oecomes difficult to define. while "building frontage" is easily understood. A lengthy discussion followed. It was decided to use ''building frontage". This term would also be used in 6.04.2 (b) (l). 6.05.6 was changed to read. "Ground signs shall be a maximum of ten (lO) ft. in height and 100 sq. ft. maximum with no more than 5u sq. ft. per side." 6.08 was changed to read ".....District. a planned sign program is required by the City and shall be initiated......" After a discussion, it was decided that 6.08.l would be deleted. With regard to 6.08.4 (a) and (b) were found to be inappropriate for this Section and moved to 7.l3. Mr. Mulkern said he had difficulty differentiating between a shopping center and general commerciaL tie referred to chart for "Signs According to Land Use District". With the 200 sq. ft. maximum. if there are 8 stores. there would only be 25 sq. ft. pe r ten an t. In a shoppin g cente r they could have 40 sq. ft. He proposed striKing the 200 sq. ft. maximum or making it 320 sq. ft. It would seem general commercial was being penalized because there was no maj or tenant. ASAC Member Sallan said the intent was to limit total sign area so there would not be wall to wall signs in small centers. As part of the discussion which followed, Mr. Mulkern said the City of Mountain View was being sued by the Chamber of Commerce because of discrimination against some members because of geographical location. The determination must be equitable. ASAC Chairman Koenitzer noted the desire of the SRC to insure separation between the signs. PC-223 Page 6 MINUTES OF. THE MARCH 24, 1976 ADJ. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Chairman Gatto suggested putting the two categories together and using Table B. He felt the frontage area was a better criteria. It was noted there might be some cases where it would be better to have two low ground signs. This was discussed. Table H Sign Area/Side was changed to read as follows: SO sq. ft. with total of 100 sq. ft. maximum 75 sq. ft. with total of 150 sq. ft. maximum 100 sq. ft. with total of 2UO sq. ft. maximum Comm. Woodward then questioned limiting number of tenants posted on sign readerboard. He noted reader boards are not designed for 40 mph traffic but he felt it should be up to the individual developer how it was presented. ASAC Chairman Koenitzer noted groundsigns are mainly for reading from the auto and only a certain number of items can be read. Chairman Gatto said he tended to feel the square footage of the sign was more important for eliminating clutter than content of sign. Eliminating visual clutter versus infringement on individual tenant was discussed. Mr. Ward said the circumstances varied from center to center. He said when people see 40 slugs in a readerboard, even if they can't read the names they know there are 20 snops in that center. He felt the owners should have latitude and not be restricted to three names. Comm. Adams said he would be willing to have one main sign with several panels being changed from time to time. ASAC Member Sallan noted the action taken by the Planning Commission on the "Grandfather clause" would delay intent of ordinance consider- ably. Chairman Gatto noted there was no consensus on the limit of 3 names. Mr. Wsrd referred to 6.06.4 and wondered if limit industrial parks to two entry signs. out this would be under Planned Development consideration . it was necessary to Comm. Woodward pointed and receive individual MINuTES OF THE HARŒ 24, 1976 ADJ. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING PC-223 Page 7 SECTION 7 The lSO ft. lamberts as standard for intensity of iLlumination was discussed. Also as a part of the discussion on 7.07, Mr. Ward questioned requiring sigas to oe turned off when the business was not open. He said they had requested interior lights be left on for security reasons. ASAC Member Sallan said their intent had been to conserve energy. ASAC Chairman Koenitzer pointed out there were other sources of light, such as interior lights. parking lights and soffit lights that would provide function of security. Mr. Heymann noted this had been discussed at length. He referred to criteria which had been prepared for other cities. He said if a new bulb was used it will be brighter until the illumination quality of bulb dims itself down. Also a new siga will appear brighter because the eye is not used to it. To put foot lamberts in this category would be arbitrary and could not be applied efficiently. He could not see any reason for turning signs off at this time because there was no energy crisis and he questioned the legality of such a requiretœnt. In answer to Chairman Gatto, Mr. rteymann said tne foot lamberts could be measured but che light ræter would be affected by many other sources so it would not be a true reading. Chairman Gatto suggested the siga company could furnish information on lamberts of a bulb. ASAC Chairman Koenitzer said this was one area they wanted to set specific standards. Chairman Gatto said he had no problem with this requiretœnt. Comm. Woodward said it would not be satisfactory to use light intensity as only criteria. Chairman Gatto asked staff to research criteria and standards which could be used. With regard to turning off signs; <;omm. Cooper said the only thing that should be of concern would be certain areas where lights were necessary for security. She suggested it might be helpful to ask the Sheriff's office how much the lights are used for security reasons. If used only for advertising purposes they should be turned off after 9 :00 at night. Comm. Woodward said he could not see a pressing need for demanding the lights be turned off. Comm. Cooper said she felt it was necess- ary for everyone to start conserving energy. Mr. Mulkern advocated checKing with the Sheriff's office. He noted people are being encouraged to walk through the business community and they might want the advantage of having signs lighted "at night as it would add protection for pedescrians. P(;-Z2 J Page 8 MINUTES OF TIlE MARCH 24, 1976 ADJ. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING (;omm. Adams ordinance. Sallan took said conserving energy had nothing to do with a sign Comm. Woodward agreed. Comm. Cooper and ASAC Member exception to this statement. Ihe possibility of enforcing this requirement was discussed. Comm. Adams pointed out they could ask the business community to cooperate by turning off lights but 'it could not be required. Mr. Ward said they had-beenin~ontact with the, Sheriff's office who had informed them leaving the signs on have helped in several areas. Chairman Gatto asked that staff contact the Sheriff's office regarding this issue. Ie was clarified that 7.l3.3 does require a sign program be inieiated but it does not require a change of copy for all signs. Chairman Gatto noted this should be changed to so indicate this intent. ASAC Member Sallan noted 7.08 could be included under 3.04. In discussing 7.11, Mr. MulkezU wondered if gas price signs could always De incorporated, :in1:o ,the ,ground sign. tie was in accord with the SRC in getting rid (J£ make shift..sign but·would hate to limit it to the ground sign. Chairman Gatto poineed out there was the exception to cover such cases. Tne first sentence under 7.11 was changed to read as follows: "Reader board signs in a general connnercial district shall be permitted only to the extent......". 7.14 was briefly discussed. Mr. Mulkern noted this might prohibit the donut shop at McClellan Square from having a sign on the side. ADJOURNMENT At ll:45 p.m., (;omm. Adams moved, seconded by Comm. Woodward, to adjourn to the next regular meeting on April 12, 1976 at 7:30 p.m. Motion carried, 4-0 ATTEST: APPROVED: , CitY Clerk ¥1.