Setting Up Your Community for Sign Code Success
AACSRE Board Members Dawn Jourdan, aicp, and Eric Strauss, aicp have published Setting Up Your Community for Sign Code Success.
INTRO:
For decades, cities and counties, through their planning departments, have sought to better engage the general public in decision making. This involvement begins with comprehensive planning processes, where citizens help decision makers envision the future of urban development. It is followed by encouraging stakeholders to participate in processes to develop or reform regulations, such as zoning and land development codes, which implement the comprehensive plan.
Because regulations that guide and govern signs can be controversial and complicated, cities often create specialized task forces to help craft these codes. The more expertise brought into this process, the more likely the codes are to be implemented and the less likely they are to be litigated. This article explores the fundamentals of sign codes from scope and purposes to the process of creation, appeal, and amendment.