Council amends city’s code on signs, auxiliary buildings

GENTRY — City council, on Aug. 1, passed two ordinances on their third and final readings to amend the city’s current laws on signs and on portable and accessory structures. The accessory structure and portable building ordinance was passed with an emergency clause, making it effective immediately. The sign ordinance goes into effect in 60 days after its first publication (See Page B6 in this issue).

The sign ordinance removes content-based discrimination from Gentry’s sign ordinance in an effort to prevent any litigation against the city for allowing some kinds of signs and not others based on the content of the signs rather than on the sign size, construction and location.

As a result of a Supreme Court ruling (Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona), the ordinance amending Gentry code regarding signs and, particularly, yard-sale signs was recommended to the council by the Gentry Planning and Zoning Commission.

In a 2015 ruling, the United States Supreme Court ruled that municipalities could not discriminate in allowing or prohibiting signs based on the content of the signs. In order to comply with the ruling and not expose the city to lawsuits, the proposed amendment was brought to the council in June which was intended to fix the problem by repealing Gentry Code, Section 7.28.05, regulating yard- and garage-sale signs and amending Code, Section 14.04.09, to say that people who are legally permitted to display commercial or non-commercial signs on their properties may substitute noncommercial messages without discrimination in regard to content.

The change will again make it illegal to post garage sale signs on any city-owned property or right of way. The state already prohibits any non-state signs from being displayed in state right of ways, including at intersections, on utility poles or traffic signal posts. Signs may still be posted on private property but only with the property owner’s permission.

Also passed on its third reading, and with an emergency clause, was an ordinance amending city code regulating the placement of accessory structures and portable buildings on one’s property within the city. The ordinance was recommended to the council by the planning and zoning commission because of the number of variance requests made under the existing code.

The ordinance, which took effect immediately, allows property owners to place an unlimited number of accessory and portable buildings on the part of their parcel behind the front of the primary residence up to the use of 50 percent of the total parcel area for the residence and auxiliary structures. A 6-foot privacy fence would be required once the primary residence and auxiliary buildings exceed 30 percent of the square footage of the parcel.

The ordinance does not permit the structures to be closer than three feet to another structure and it adjusts rear and side setback distances, depending on the zoning, to no less than five feet from the side or rear property lines (A-1 is 25 feet, R1 is 10 feet and R2 is 7 feet. Setbacks in R-3, R4 and R0 are between 5 and 10 feet.). Portable structures, defined as not having a permanent foundation or being more than 120 square feet, may be placed no closer than five feet from the rear or side parcel lines in the proposed ordinance.

The proposed ordinance originally would have allowed portable buildings to be placed within three feet of rear and side parcel lines, but that was amended to a minimum of five feet in a compromise before the vote. Council member James Furgason suggested removing the provision allowing portable buildings to be closer to the side parcel lines than the setbacks for permanent auxiliary buildings because of concerns that portable buildings could become eyesores and cause drainage issues for neighbors, which would have made side-yard setbacks between five and 25 feet, depending on the zone.

Five feet was suggested since it is the current requirement in regard to the placement of portable buildings, and the proposed ordinance was amended to reflect the current five feet setback for portable buildings and adopted unanimously by the council.

The setback is measured from the parcel property line to the base of the building. An 18inch roof overhang is allowed but, if the roof overhangs more than that, the additional inches are added to the setback distance for the building base to prevent drainage from damaging a neighbor’s property or fence.

The emergency clause was passed because of the number of building permits waiting for approval involving the placement of auxiliary and portable buildings.