City OKs electronic signs on marquees
New regulations helping businesses while city plans to rewrite entire sign code.
The city of Bastrop made tweaks to its regulations on marquees ahead of a major rewrite of the city’s sign ordinance.
The City Council passed rules that allow for electronic signs on marquees, giving local businesses the ability to modify them and take advantage of new messaging technologies.
Under the current ordinance, which has been in place since 2006, pylon signs are only allowed on businesses along Texas 71 that are greater than 12,000 square feet. They can be up to 35 feet in height and can have a sign face up to 160 square feet. Monument signs, or those with a sign face no larger than its base, can be on any street and can be up to 16 feet tall with 96 square feet of sign face depending on the size of the building and speed of the street. Businesses on roads with speed limits less than 40 mph, for example, are allowed a monument sign up to 8 feet tall and a sign face up to 48 square feet.
In 2011, the city began permitting LED messages on monument signs and fuel pricing signs only. Up to 25 percent of the total surface area of the sign face could display an illuminated electronic message, though this rule has not always been consistently enforced, city staff said.
Under the new rules, up to 40 square feet of the pylon sign area can be electronic on signs greater than 160 square feet, and up to 30 percent of the pylon sign can be electronic on signs smaller than 160 square feet.
Any sign that was not conforming to the previous ordinance will be allowed to remain. However, if repairs or maintenance exceed 60 percent of the cost of installing a new sign, the city will require that business to install a new sign conforming to city ordinances.
The Bastrop City Council approved those rules despite receiving a recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission to hold off on any rule changes before the city is able to rewrite its 63-page sign code.
That process is expected to be lengthy, city officials said. Meanwhile, local business owners are requesting permits for signs that would not conform under the old ordinance.
“It’s going to be a long process to rewrite the sign ordinance, but in the meantime I believe the best thing for us to do is to step forward, work with our local business owners, and allow this amendment to the sign ordinance so that our Planning Department can be consistent with what’s already been done,” said Council Member Deborah Jones.
“What we’re going to be doing is creating a bridge between now and when Planning and Zoning rightfully is going to be going through that whole process,” Jones added.
Bastrop Assistant Planning Director Jennifer Bills said the rewrite will likely begin next year and could span several months of deliberations, public input and revisions.
Those discussions would also include a reconsideration of the city’s rules governing billboards, which some officials have described as an eyesore.
This summer, the Planning and Zoning Commission began considering an arrangement with billboard companies that would tear down a certain number of static billboards for every digitally illuminated sign a company wants to erect.