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Tyrone making headway on ordinance revisionsFri, 01/09/2009 - 4:22pm
By: Ben Nelms
It is a work in progress. And the discussion and deliberation by Tyrone Planning Commission at the work session Thursday to continue efforts on the town’s Revised Sign Ordinance and Traditional Residential Zoning District moved closer to completion. They will likely be considered in regular session in coming weeks. The Traditional Residential Zoning District has been an evolving topic for the past few months. The district is currently proposed to require a 10-acre minimum development area and, in conformity with the town’s other residential zoning districts, individual lots of a minimum of 1-acre. Town Manager Chris Venice provided a draft proposal that defined the district as one “designed to emulate historic residential areas and to provide for an open, leafy, low-density area with a network of paths/trails and preserved open areas.” The minimum lot width tentatively sits at 100 feet, compared to 125 feet for other residential zoning categories. Front yard setbacks are listed at 55 feet, side yard setbacks at 10 feet with back yard setbacks at 20 feet. Those figures represent a moderate decrease over the same requirements in the other residential zoning categories. The minimum house size is tentatively set at 1,200 square feet. Minimum square footage in the other categories ranges from 1,000-1,800 square feet. Commissioners will continue discussions on the zoning district at the February work session and are expected to see it on the regular session agenda later that month. The bulk of the work session was taken up by a discussion of the Revised Sign Ordinance. As in several previous meetings where the ordinance was discussed, commissioners reviewed the ordinance line by line and often word by word, commenting on potential revisions noted by town attorney Dennis Davenport. “You need to be fair to businesses and fair to the town,” Davenport said of the multitude of minute issues that commissioners must consider and resolve and reminding them that any conclusions reached were tentative in nature. Having worked their way through much of the sign ordinance, commissioners Thursday centered their attention on signs for non-residential districts. Davenport noted throughout the discussion that the various aspects of the section on non-residential signs, such as requirements for freestanding signs, wall and window signs are hot-button issues that could easily become topics of litigation for attorneys looking for work. Other signage discussed included banners, temporary construction signs, flags, suspended signs and out-of-store marketing devices such as gas pumps of soft drink machines. An example of one of the points of discussion was reflected in the section on window signs. As tentatively written, a portion of that section describes, “Any visible sign inside a building within 10 feet of a window is considered a window sign. No more than 50 percent or 35 square feet , whichever is less, of the total available advertising space, or glass area, shall be used to display window signs. Such signs may not be illuminated.” After discussion, commissioners agreed with Davenport’s suggestion that the first sentence should be modified to specify signs on the interior or exterior of the window so that the description would leave no room for doubt in the mind of a business owner as to the town’s requirement. During several points of discussion, Davenport recommended that commissioners think about the changes that might be needed and address them at the next meeting. Commissioners will revisit the ordinance at the February work session. login to post comments
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