Planners tackle sign ordinance
‘Whether it’s ugly pigs or pretty pigs, whether it’s fat cows or skinny cows …’
First step: identify what needs to be fixed in the ordinance, then hold public hearings on topics such as public art and illuminated signs.
Special to the Rappahannock News “There’s nothing worse than a sign ordinance than a bark-the-dog ordinance to get through,” observed County Attorney Art Go during a lively and informative discussion in the Planning Commission’s Monday night work session to begin amending the county’s sign ordinance.
The planners had asked Go to attend the meeting and help set the context for taking up the sign ordinance, a contentious zoning issue in the county.
Go cited a landmark case decided by the Supreme Court in 2015 as a guiding principle for the planners’ deliberations: Reed v. The Town of Gilbert, Arizona. In the town, temporary directional signs for churches were considered to be nuisances because they are ugly and distracting to drivers, but other similar types of nuisance signs, such as political signs, were treated di erently and less restrictively.
The court struck down the ordinance.
“The lesson of the Town of Gilbert,” Go said, “is you can’t treat [the same kind of signs] di erently based on the content of the message.”
He then gave a tutorial about key concepts the planners need to consider to preserve the constitutionality of the sign ordinance.
“The highest level of court review,” he said, “is the ordinance must relate to a compelling state interest [such as essential government functions] and be narrowly tailored to achieve the result. [At the next level] a substantial state interest relates to beauti cation/preserving views, tra c safety and protecting property values.” He said 97 percent of sign zoning cases involve these areas.
And the regs have to be content neutral, relating only to construction, materials, lighting, dimensions, location and number of signs. The ordinance cannot restrict what a sign says or the category of what is being said.
Then there is commercial and non-commercial speech. “These are key ordinance categories,” Go said, “that you’re concerned with as a zoning body. …Your primary beef is the proliferation of annoying signs … cluttering up the countryside.”
Go o ered an ordinance template prepared by the Local Government Attorneys of Virginia for the planners to consider, as well as a sign ordinance amendment recommendation worksheet that would help the planners think through what needs amending and how to approach it.
One major issue facing the county is public art: What is it? Should it be allowed?
This was brought to a head in early 2018 when Robert Archer, owner of the Happy Camper business in Sperryville painted “Welcome to Sperryville” on the side of his store. A er a complaint to Zoning Administrator Michelle Somers, the sign was declared “non-conforming” in the county’s ordinance. The Sperryville community turned out in force at public meetings in favor of the sign, which many characterized as a mural and not subject to the sign regs. At its February 2020 meeting, the county Board of Supervisors tabled the issue until the Planning Commission could take it up.
Go described certain types of “crossover” signs that could be considered both commercial and public art, such as company logos. How would that be handled? He recommended de ning all signs by size, even those considered art.
Stonewall-Hawthorne planner Gary Light asked if there could be “a category of public art based on a clear de nition? Could we not carve out a narrow category like a mural that is otherwise decorating a structure such as a barn or silo as a small step? Something that is more de ned than public art writ large?”
“You don’t need to de ne art,” Go said. “You need to de ne the size of it. What I’m saying is you’ve got to allow it all, whether it’s ugly pigs or pretty pigs, whether it’s fat cows or skinny cows, whether they are cartoonish or [realistic]. The di erence between a sign and public art is the scale of it, not what’s contained therein.”
WHERE DO WE START?
“What the Board of Supervisors wants to hear from y’all is if the Planning Commission says is if the people of Rappahannock don’t think that allowing these types of large scale public art messages … if the people don’t want to risk that type of visual intrusion.”
Hampton planner Al Henry said,
“I’m not presuming to know the will of the people of Rappahannock. … We have to come up with a framework that we ll in based on public hearings.”
Go suggested that the planners take up a couple of sections of the ordinance “to get a better sense of what the public really wants.”
“If we have something in the current ordinance that is unenforceable, we need to start there,” said Chair David Konick.
Light agreed: “Rather than start with some other model and t it to Rappahannock, I’d support [Konick’s] approach where we try to x what’s wrong with our ordinance.”
“I have the solution,” Henry said. “We did well with no ordinance for 210 years [before it was written in 1986]. Let’s just do away with it entirely.”
Konick laughed. “If Phil [Irwin] were here he’d be getting up out of that chair.” Irwin, who died last week, was a champion of protecting the county’s rural character and viewshed.
In the end, the planners agreed to identify what needs to be xed in the ordinance, then hold public hearings on topics such as public art and illuminated signs. In the meantime, Go will also compose a list of regulations he feels need to be xed.
‘IT’S BEEN A REAL HONOR’
Before the meeting was adjourned, Konick, whose term as chair and member of the Planning Commission ended with the planners’ regular meeting Wednesday night, thanked several county o cials, including County Administrator Garrey Curry, “a great asset to the county and the Commission.”
“Thanks to [Zoning Administrator] Michelle Somers, [Building O ce Administrative Secretary] Marlena Lee, and [the county’s HR administrator] Lauren May. .... These three made this job go a lot smoother. They do a lot of things behind the scenes that the public may not be aware of. It’s been a real honor to serve in this position.”