Planning Commission

MILLCREEK CITY, UTAH PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS MARCH 2019 AFFECTING BILLBOARDS We live amongst wonder, beauty, and grandeur. Millcreek City Staff are proposing Zoning Ordinance revisions affecting billboards. These revisions are numerous and substantive. Billboards enjoy unique statutory protections in Utah. Once established these protections, when considered in their totality, have the effect of allowing the billboard in perpetuity. Any public actions taken affecting billboards must be deliberate and careful. State law compliance is required. However, Utah’s municipalities do have discretion toward billboards. I provide the following comments directed to Public Hearing Item 1.2 Consideration of ZT-19-001, Amendment to Title 19 of the Millcreek Code Updating Requirements for Billboards. My comments are offered as an interested Millcreek City resident. Due to a long-standing commitment, I am unable to attend the Planning Commission meeting in-person. However, I would appreciate these comments being entered into the Planning Commission meeting record. I take this opportunity to thank you all for your service to Millcreek City. Respectfully, (pds@utahplanning.com) STAFF PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS 4/19/2019 PROPOSED ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS SUMMARY: The proposed Zoning Ordinance amendments affecting billboards are significant. An example of this significance is the concept of billboard relocation based on protecting existing total billboard sign area. This issue, like all others, have Millcreek Citywide impacts. Similar issues are: (1) billboard size & height, (2) prohibited billboard locations, (3) billboard restoration, relocation & removal, (4) location & separation, (5) nonconforming structures, (6) billboard acquisition, and its partner eminent domain; and (7) other important billboard matters. In the interests of providing directed comments, I am only focusing attention on a few billboard items. However, all other proposed billboard regulation amendments are equally important and deserve similar scrutiny. The items for my attention are: (1) General Plan Consistency, (2) Amendment Purposes, (3) Definitions, (4) Total Number & Total Billboard Square Footage, (5) Size, (6) Height, (7) Changeable Copy & Electronic Billboard Technology, (8) Prohibited Billboard Locations; and (9) “Other” Billboard items. Each of these items is addressed, with background materials drawn from the Municipal Land Use Development, and Management Act (‘MLUDMA”) and the Utah Outdoor Advertising Act (“UOAA”). My comments are contained in the shaded text boxes. A summary is: (1) Quoting the City Staff; “even with the proposed changes, Millcreek’s ordinance will be more permissive than the codes in other cities” (Staff Report, p, 1). This should not be our goal or reality; the General Plan advocates otherwise. The amendments proposed have a long way to go to “align with the standards of other similarly situated (Salt Lake County) communities (Staff Report, p. 1). (1) Require complete General Plan consistency. (2) Required In-depth Geographic Information System (“GIS”) analyses of the proposed amendments applied to the geography of Millcreek City. (3) Remove the concepts of “Billboard Bank” and “Billboard Credits.” The underlying economic development and redevelopment goals should not come at the expense of other Millcreek neighborhoods. Using a Billboard Bank and relocation to benefit certain areas over others (including State Street) is to pick winners and losers. This is not a sound or fair economic development tool. (4) Provide additional required definitions. (5) Clarify how “billboard height” is measured. (6) Address electronic billboard technology and its application in Millcreek City; and (7) Provide an alternative billboard review and approval process. Approving billboards as a Permitted Use is inappropriate to the public interest and transparency. Page 1 STAFF PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS 4/19/2019 PROPOSED ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS, WITH APPLICABLE STATUTORY STANDARDS GENERAL PLAN POLICIES & UTAH STATUTORY DIRECTIVES MILLCREEK CITY – GENERAL PLAN (2019): SIGNS. GOAL GP-2: Ensure that sign location and design is responsive to site context and compatible with the surrounding character. • Strategy 2.4: Discourage billboards in designated or developed commercial and residential areas and in locations that block views of the Wasatch Mountains or in conflict with the goals of the General Plan. Consider techniques to remove or alter billboards such as purchase, amortization or other techniques. STREETSCAPE. GOAL GC-3: Improve the safety and visual image of the community by enhancing the look and feel of major corridors and protecting our scenic viewsheds. • Strategy 3.9: Reduce the number, size, and height of billboards along all City streets (Emphasis added, General Plan, 2019, pp. 77-78). Comments: (1). The General Plan, 2019 provides clear policy for consideration of billboards. Ordinances, or any amendment, with a foundation in the adopted General Plan, provides the safe ground. The General Plan, 2019 was recently recommended by the Planning Commission and unanimously adopted by the City Council. Ordinance amendments, including those affecting billboards, based on General Plan policies can withstand attack. (2). Within the pages of the General Plan, no images exist of any of the 50+ billboards located in Millcreek City. This underscores the General Plan policies for billboard reductions, and the “negative impacts” of billboards on land uses and the community (General Plan, 2019). MUNICIPAL LAND USE, DEVELOPMENT, AND MANAGEMENT ACT (“MLUDMA”): Municipalities may enact all ordinances, resolutions, and rules and may enter into other forms of land use controls that they consider necessary or appropriate for the use and development of land within the municipality, fairness in land use regulation, considerations of surrounding land uses, and the balance of the foregoing purposes with a landowner's private property interests. Comment: (1) Millcreek has the required authority (provided by State law) to enact all ordinances considered necessary for the use and development of land; balanced with property interests. UTAH OUTDOOR ADVERTISING ACT (“UOAA”): Page 2 STAFF PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS 4/19/2019 Provide the statutory basis for regulation of outdoor advertising consistent with zoning principles public policy providing public safety, health, welfare, convenience and enjoyment of public travel, protect public investment in highways, preserve natural scenic beauty of lands, ensure that outdoor advertising continued as a standardized medium of communication. Comment: (1) UOAA provides the basis for outdoor advertising regulation. PURPOSE OF AMENDMENTS PROPOSED CITY STAFF AMENDMENTS 19.82.185 – Off-Premises Signs: Billboards Purpose. In keeping with the goals of the Millcreek General Plan to promote signs that are responsive to neighborhood character, and to improve the aesthetics of major streetscapes, the purpose of the billboard ordinance is to provide reasonable regulation of billboards in order reduce the heights and area of future billboards, mitigate negative impacts, promote safety, protect property values, and reduce impediments for economic development and redevelopment. It is the policy of Millcreek to reduce the number and combined square footage of billboards where feasible (emphasis added). Comments: (1). The Purposes of the Ordinance recognize: (1) Billboards create “negative impacts,” (2) Billboards are “impediments for economic development and redevelopment;” and (3) The number and square footage of billboards should be reduced. (2). The City’s General Plan, 2019 (just weeks old), recommended by the Planning Commission and adopted by the City Council (unanimously) should now be followed and implemented completely. DEFINITIONS PROPOSED CITY STAFF AMENDMENTS Add the following definition: “ground level vantage point” means a position where an object can be viewed at no more than six feet above original grade. MLUDMA: The Municipal Land Use, Development, and Management Act (“MLUDMA”) provides several billboard related definitions. These definitions include billboard, noncomplying structure clearly visible, highest allowable height, etc. For consistency and compliance, these definitions should be expressly added to the amended Ordinance or included by reference. Page 3 STAFF PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS 4/19/2019 UOAA: Like MLUDMA the Utah Outdoor Advertising Acct provides billboard related definitions. These should be expressly added to the amended Ordinance or included by reference. . Comments: (1). Additional Definitional material is required. The Ordinance requires for its application a definition for “height” and height measurement. The existing Ordinance, or the proposed amendments, is a definition for “height,” as applied to billboards provided. While it appears, measurement is FROM natural grade or the grade of an interstate highway the amendments do not specify where height is measured TO. Is it the bottom of the billboard sign area or is it to the top? This is important, having a significant influence on the “negative impacts” of a billboard. (2). The existing ordinance defines "Billboard bank" and “Billboard credit.” These definitions and the concept of maintaining a billboard bank is not statutorily required. Consistent with the General Plan, these definitions, and the application of any billboard bank and billboard credit should be removed immediately as a General Plan implementation action. (3). For consistency and compliance with both MLUDMA & UOAA the definitions provided by these statutes should either be expressly included in the Ordinance amendments or incorporated into the City’s billboard provisions by reference. TOTAL NUMBER & SQUARE FOOTAGE OF EXISTING BILLBOARDS PROPOSED CITY STAFF AMENDMENTS: Cap on Area of Off-Premises Billboards. The combined square footage of all billboards allowed in the City shall be limited to the combined square footage of billboards that are existing as defined herein as of December 27, 2013, within the boundaries of the city as it was incorporated on December 28, 2016. This cap shall automatically decrease as billboards are annexed into a municipal jurisdiction or removed and not relocated. MLUDMA: No standards are provided that expressly address Total Number of Total Square Footage of sign area. UOAA: No standards are provided that expressly address Total Number of Total Square Footage of sign area. Comments: (1). The Staff Report does not provide the already existing Total Billboard Sign Area Square Footage. This is a critical item. The City Staff’s proposed City Zoning Ordinance amendments place significant value on total billboard square Page 4 STAFF PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS 4/19/2019 footage. This prioritization of total sign area over the total number of billboards will have the practical effect of adding more billboards when coupled with maximum billboard size (following). Providing for more billboards is antithetical and in direct opposition to the City’s General Plan. (2). Protecting billboard square footage as an economic development/redevelopment strategy is a way, albeit unfair and inequitable, of rewarding certain selected areas while punishing others. (3). Millcreek City has 51 existing billboards (Staff Report, p. 1). This total number is realized even with very limited Interstate Freeway exposure. Residents or economic development options do not need more billboards to advance any City policy. BILLBOARD SIZE PROPOSED CITY STAFF AMENDMENTS: Size. Billboards shall not exceed 300 square feet in the C-2, C-3, and M zones, except as provided below and in Subsection 12 of this chapter. Signs that are intended to be viewed from an Interstate freeway travel lane shall not exceed 600 square feet. Signs oriented for viewing along State Street and located within 20 feet of the State Street right-of-way shall not exceed 600 square feet. MLUDMA: No standards are provided that expressly address billboard size. UOAA: A sign face within the state may not exceed: (i) maximum area - 1,000 square feet; (ii) maximum length - 60 feet; and (iii) maximum height - 25 feet. No more than two facings on any one sign structure. Two facings shall not exceed the maximum allowed square footage (1,000 sq. feet). Comment: (1). This proposed amendment, related to billboard area size, cannot be uncoupled from the Ordinance directive of protecting the total billboard square footage. This is particularly true when billboard relocation is considered. Understanding these complex relationships is vital to understanding the city-wide impacts of the proposed Ordinance amendments. For example, a billboard relocation designed to remove “impediments for economic development and redevelopment” protects the total existing square total footage. A couple of locations where such a relocated billboard would land are expressly highlighted: (1) along an Interstate highway; or (2) within 20 feet of the State Street right-of- way. What policy is served by further adding “negative impediments” to these locations? Answer; economic development and redevelopment in preferred locations. Locations adjacent to an Interstate highway and State Street are offered up as the sacrificial lambs. This is not sound policy or municipal planning. Issues of fairness and equity should be priorities. If an area is ripe for sound economic development and redevelopment, the private sector will speak. If not, the area lacks the necessary private support and investment. The State Street and Interstate highway corridors deserve Page 5 STAFF PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS 4/19/2019 attention, not to be considered as the dumping grounds for other locations. To do so is to not consider the totality of the City. (2). The concept of protecting total billboard area square footage and providing preferred relocation areas is a Transferable Development Rights program variation (sending and receiving areas) applied to billboards. In this contact it is important to note, billboards will no longer be allowed in the C-1 zone. While to be applauded, this policy should also be applied to State Street. The State Street corridor is also “especially close to residential uses” (Staff Report, p. 2). (3) The proposed Ordinance revisions are not clear on how size is transferred. If a billboard structure carries two sign faces (as a V-structure) (each being 600 square feet) is the entire 1,200 square feet transferable? If so a minimum of two (2) new billboards will be relocated. This requires clarification. (4) “Signs will in most cases be limited to 300 square feet in size. Except for signs on State Street and for viewing along I-15” (Staff Report p. 2). Again, why further negatively impact the built environments of State Street and the I-15 corridor? This question is relevant when considered against the General Plan’s goals of creating “Vibrant Economy” (General Plan, p. 41) and “Thriving Gathering Places” (General Plan, p. 55). The State Street commercial corridor and its adjacent neighborhoods are envisioned to achieve both a vibrant economy and a thriving gathering place. BILLBOARD HEIGHT PROPOSED CITY STAFF AMENDMENTS: Height. Except as provided below and in Subsection 11 of this chapter, the maximum height of a billboard shall be 32 feet above the grade level of the road in the C-2, C-3, or M zones, except as provided below: a. Signs that are oriented for viewing on an Interstate freeway travel lane may have a maximum height of 50 feet, but in no event shall be greater than 25 feet above freeway grade level. b. In the event that a billboard cannot be viewed from any residential zone, it may exceed 32 feet in height, up to a maximum height of 40 feet. In order to achieve the additional height, the billboard owner must certify as part of a building permit that the billboard meets the following requirements: a. The billboard is not visible from a ground-level vantage point on any property in a residential zone within 150 feet of the residential zone boundary, and b. The billboard must be situated on the same side of the street and within 50 feet of an existing building or buildings and have no greater height than the immediately adjacent building(s). MLUDMA: “Interstate height" means a height that is the higher of: (i) 65 feet above the ground; and (ii) 25 feet above the grade of the interstate. "Highest allowable height" means: (i) if the height allowed by the municipality, by ordinance or consent, is higher than the height under Subsection (1)(b)(ii), the height allowed by the municipality; or (ii)(A) for a noninterstate billboard: (I) if the height of the previous use or structure is 45 feet or higher, the height of the previous use or structure; or (II) if the height of the previous use or structure is less than 45 feet, the height of the previous use or structure or the height to make the entire advertising content of the billboard clearly visible, whichever is higher, but no higher than 45 feet; and (B) for an interstate Page 6 STAFF PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS 4/19/2019 billboard: (I) if the height of the previous use or structure is at or above the interstate height, the height of the previous use or structure; or (II) if the height of the previous use or structure is less than the interstate height, the height of the previous use or structure or the height to make the entire advertising content of the billboard clearly visible, whichever is higher, but no higher than the interstate height. "Interstate billboard" means a billboard that is intended to be viewed from a highway that is an interstate. UOAA: Maximum height - 25 feet. Comment: (1). The Planning Commission lacks the required analysis to make a recommendation. While the Planning Commission has been provided with a map of existing billboards, more GIS mapping analysis is required. For example, the effects of the proposed amendments affecting locations, separation, height, and other matters should be mapped. Such analyses would be invaluable for the Planning Commission in discussing and deciding the proposed amendments CHANGEABLE MESSAGE PROPOSED CITY STAFF AMENDMENTS: No amendments proposed. The existing Ordinance states: “Internally illuminated billboards, electronic display, digital display, LED display, video display billboards and electronic message centers are only allowed immediately adjacent to the Interstate 15 and shall be limited to no more than one change to the copy face in a twenty-four-hour period.” MLUDMA: No specific provisions provided. However, provisions such as “structurally modify or upgrade a billboard” §10-9a-513(2)(b)(iii) (Utah Code) can be liberally interpreted and applied (emphasis added). UOAA: A changeable message sign is permitted if the interval between message changes is not more frequent than at least eight seconds and the actual message rotation process is accomplished in three seconds or less. Comments: (1). Existing City standards conflict with UOAA (24-hour v. 8-second changes). Does this conflict place the City’s standards in jeopardy? Page 7 STAFF PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS 4/19/2019 (2). Electronic and changeable copy billboards are the new normal. City staff is not considering this as part of the amendment process. Billboard technology has changed and will continue to change. Not considering the influences of electronic signs and changeable copy signs concurrently, avoids a comprehensive approach. PROHIBITED BILLBOARD LOCATIONS PROPOSED CITY STAFF AMENDMENTS: Prohibited Locations. Billboards, notwithstanding the underlying zone, shall not be permitted anywhere within 100 feet of the Main Street right-of-way, east of Interstate 215, or within 500 feet of the following intersections, as measured as a radius from the nearest property line to the intersection right-of-way line: a. 2000 East and 3300 South b. 1100 East and 3900 South c. 1300 East and 3900 South d. 2300 East and 3900 South e. 2300 East and Claybourne Avenue f. Murray-Holladay Road and Highland Drive Comment: (1) The Staff Report does not mention the evaluative criteria used to determine the prohibited locations. This criterion should be publicly known. Also, other locations may be appropriate for billboard prohibition. Each of us can think of several. This points to a problem. Appropriate evaluative criteria for one person may not be the same for another. Clarity of evaluation is required, (2) billboard prohibited areas should be mapped. A GIS analysis with accompanying General Plan mapping as overlays, including Map 3, Thriving Economy (p. 41) and Map 4, Vibrant gathering spaces (p. 54). This should be provided for the Planning Commission and public review. OTHER BILLBOARD REVISION PROPOSED CITY STAFF AMENDMENTS - NEW MATERIALS “Billboards are only allowed in the C-2, C-3, and M zones as a permitted use, subject the additional restrictions established in this chapter” (emphasis added). The City Staff amendments are proposing billboards be approved vas a Permitted Use. “Deviations” and Reductions. Throughout the proposed amendments “deviations” are provided. As an example. “Relocation of Billboards to Accommodate Redevelopment. In order to accommodate the redevelopment of sites within a community reinvestment area or any site in the city that is at least one acre in size, the City may allow the following deviations . . . . . “ (Clean Copy, §13). Standards to grant a “deviation” are lacking. Highly problematic when linked with a Permitted Use approval process. Comments: Page 8 STAFF PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AFFECTING BILLBOARDS 4/19/2019 (1) For a variety of reasons, this provision is problematic. If for no other reason, the Planning Commission should be provided with the opportunity to confirm all applicable standards are applied correctly before any billboard approval. For such an important matter a confirming “double-check” is appropriate. (2) Any provision that allows for a deviation or reduction to a standard should be justified with the criteria to be applied to decide such deciation. Thank you for your consideration. BP. Page 9