Planners work on freeway sign ordinance

By Dave Frank

Appeal Staff Writer

Signs along the freeway should balance the needs of businesses with the rights of citizens, city staff say.

Staff will make their recommendations for a proposed freeway sign ordinance to the Carson City Planning Commission on Wednesday.

Sign recommendations include:

• Requiring a study of a sign's impacts on surrounding properties with each application

• One freeway sign per site

• The maximum sign height be determined on a case-by-case basis

• The maximum sign area to be 800 square feet (the size of a currently disputed sign)

The commission passed a temporary moratorium in January on signs over the 30-feet-tall height allowed without a permit. This came after the commission rejected a proposal in late-November by the largest shopping center in the city, North Carson Crossing, to build a 65-foot-tall sign for its stores, which include Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

Residents in the neighboring Northridge subdivision said the sign was intrusive and unnecessarily large. Kent Witt, the manager of the shopping center, said the sign was needed to attract business.

City supervisors voted this month to hear Witt's second appeal to them once he finished a study on the effects of the sign on residents.

The biggest concern of city staff, said Lee Plemel, head city planner, is how freeway signs will affect residential areas. He said that will continue to be an issue as the freeway is built and more signs are proposed.

The first phase of the Carson City section of the freeway was finished in 2006, and the second phase was started in October 2007. It is scheduled to hit U.S. 395 at the base of Spooner Summit in 2011.

Developers of future signs, said Northridge resident Rose Boyer, should most of all be considerate of surrounding properties and let those owners know what they're doing.

They need to keep noise and light low as much as possible, she said.

"You can't put up a 20-foot wall," she said, "but you can sure put in a strip of tall trees."

Freeway signs also shouldn't ruin any resident's view of scenery, said John Peery, head of the planning commission.

That includes the height of signs as well as the number of them, he said.

"How much signage do you have to have before your community is blighted?" Peery said.

• Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.

If you go

WHAT: Carson City Planning Commission

WHERE: The Sierra Room in the Community Center, 851 E. William St.

WHEN: 3:30 p.m. Wednesday

A copy of the agenda is on www.carson-city.nv.us. Click on the "what's happening" tab and go to "meeting information."