Planners discuss sign, zoning codes

Bella Vista’s Planning Commission met Monday night to discuss changes to the city’s zoning code and sign code, as well as the meeting calendar for 2017.

The commission unanimously voted to recommend the proposed changes to the sign code and zoning code, which will be going before the City Council for final approval.

Changes to the sign code were strictly linguistic, said Jennifer Bonner, senior planner with Community Development Services, during the work session Dec. 1.

“This is basically just getting the existing code compliant with the Supreme Court from June 2015,” Bonner said. “We cannot regulate based on content.”

Bella Vista staff attorney Jason Kelley said that the decision meant that any regulations based on content are subject to strict scrutiny. This has meant that governments throughout the nation have needed to revise their laws, he said, and Bella Vista is no different.

“We have tried to rephrase it and restate it in a matter that allows us to regulate it without regulating what it says,” Kelley said. “We did that to the best extent we could.”

The new code, he said, has provisions for signs placed during the sale of a house, for instance, rather than for signs for the sale of a house.

While the sign code as a whole may benefit from some closer examination, Kelley said, this regulation change needs to be passed as soon as possible so that the city is not vulnerable to lawsuits.

“I’m needing you to pass this so we can protect ourselves from financial liability,” he said.

Changes to the zoning district code were also discussed.

“There have been no significant changes in the past couple months,” Bonner said. “I haven’t really had any comments from anybody, so what you guys come up with tonight will be the extent of my comments.”

During the period for public comment, Linda Lloyd spoke before the commission.

Lloyd, who will be joining the City Council next year and filling the Ward 1 Position 1 seat, said that she did not approve of the regulations only allowing a home occupation be carried out in the primary residential structure.

She would prefer, she said, for people who run a home business to be able to operate in an accessory structure if they so choose.

“A lot of those properties would be appropriate for home occupations, especially in accessory structures,” she said.

Chairman Daniel Ellis said that he was concerned that this would allow someone to build what would essentially be a miniature office on their property.

Bonner said that there are 10 criteria for home occupations, and at the criteria’s core is the need to ensure that the home remains primarily a home.

The provisions require whatever business is set up in someone’s home be completely within the principal dwelling, with no nonresidents employed and no primary retail sales operation. The business also cannot take up more than a quarter of the habitable ground floor, she said. Equipment, she said, cannot be stored outdoors, the home’s external appearance may not be altered, the business cannot create any sort of nuisance — like noise or vibration or light pollution or fumes — and hazardous materials may not be stored at the home. Moreover, she said, the business may have no more than one customer parked at it at a time, and there is to be no external or visible goods manufacturing on-site.

Ellis said, “We can’t modify that on this section of code with what we’re doing tonight.”

Whether it needed modification or not, he said, that was simply not on the table.

Kelley added that, even if the city allows something, covenants may not.

The last piece of business was approving next year’s meeting schedule. Under this schedule, the commission will have regular meetings every second Monday at 6:30 p.m. and work sessions will be 10 days before the regular meetings, Thursdays at 4:30 p.m.

The commission’s Dec. 29 work session was also canceled for lack of business.