NORTHAMPTON — More than a decade after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling barred communities from regulating signs based on their message, Northampton is a step closer to rewriting its sign code. Key questions about business signs and nighttime LED displays remain unsettled, however.
At a joint hearing Thursday night, the Planning Board and the City Council’s Committee on Legislative Matters voted to recommend that the City Council approve a new sign ordinance. The Planning Board’s vote was unanimous. Legislative Matters voted 3-1, with City Council President Rachel Maiore opposed.
The decision came after a more than two-hour discussion in which members of both boards weighed business’s rights to advertise and express themselves with efforts to protect residents from nuisance and driving hazards.
The proposed ordinance would categorize signs by size, type and location. That would allow residents, for instance, to keep political lawn signs on their property for as long as they choose. Currently, signs are treated differently depending on their purpose, with political signs and signs advertising “products or services” governed by different rules.
The overhaul stems from the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, which found that content-based sign regulations violate the First Amendment. The city’s Ordinance Review Committee has been working on new regulations for years.
Much of the debate focused on how many ground signs a business should be allowed on its property.
“We are limiting people with a number by how they utilize their space to bring people in, and I am against that,” At-Large Councilor Garrick Perry said. “No business really wants to clutter their space — if they do, they’re not being very good at their job. You can be tacky if you want, I say that to the public, but it will not attract people. If you have an unlimited space to be creative, that allows you to draw people into your businesses.”
While some Planning Board members and councilors agreed with Perry that the board should not limit a business’ ability to place signage on their properties, others, such as Planning Board Chair Janna White, argued that to allow unlimited ground signs for businesses would undermine the intended purpose of the regulations.
“There are already so many different kinds of signage that are allowed, and with some reasonable restrictions on the kind of amount and percentage of space that those can take up, and the unofficial clutter that they can create,” White said. “To me, it feels like allowing unlimited type two ground signs just undermines a lot of what the rest of the proposed ordinance is intending to do.”
Ward 3 Councilor Laurie Loisel said too many ground signs on one property could be a nuisance and distract drivers, but she ultimately agreed with Perry that a limit would unfairly restrict businesses.
Further debate ensued over whether the city should implement size restrictions on LED displays, or the time at which dynamic display signs should be required to turn off at night.
While the proposed ordinance initially stipulated that “dynamic” or illuminated displays with the capability of projecting moving text or images must be shut off at 11 p.m., councilors and Planning Board members debated whether the shut-off time should be later or should correspond with a business’s closing time.
Perry argued that an 11 p.m. shut-off for signage is too early and would contradict the city’s efforts to bring back downtown nightlife.
The boards debated adding a stipulation requiring businesses to shut off signs an hour after closing, in accordance with the city’s lighting policy. However, councilors and Planning Board members were unsure how the shut-off time would be enforced.
“I like the idea of, because of the existing standards in the lighting ordinance, [making lights shut off] an hour, or a half-hour after closing,” White said. “But that’s in direct conflict with some of the concerns that have been raised about enforcement. I think we would just need to be comfortable with the trade-off there.”
Councilors and board members also debated whether 100-square-foot size limits should apply to LED-illuminated signs, with some, such as Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Stratton, arguing that it might be best for the boards to regulate less and then “clamp down” on stricter rules as issues arise.
“If someone wants to build a 100-square-foot light sign and they’ll spend money on it, and we’ll get one, then we’ll decide if we want to clamp down on rules before anybody builds more of them,” Stratton said. “But they will get that one they built forevermore.”
The joint boards included a recommendation to have City Solicitor Alan Seewald review regulations regarded LED sign size and shut off time for illuminated signs.
Maiore initially motioned for a neutral recommendation of the ordinance to the City Council, stating that until Seewald has the opportunity to comment on the ordinance, too much was “up in the air” for a positive recommendation.
The council president’s motion for a neutral recommendation failed by a 2-2 vote, with Perry and Loisel both voting “no.”
Former Ward 1 City Councilor Stan Moulton, who was involved in the original charge to revisit the ordinance, spoke in support of the ordinance revisions during public comment, urging the two bodies to consider the ordinance’s enforceability.
“So much work went into this, and I am here first to thank you for having this hearing on the ordinance … I would urge you to continue pushing this forward. Inevitably, there will be some tweaking to it, and that’s great,” Moulton said. “While I believe that we have accomplished the mission of removing content-based criteria, we didn’t do anything to create new enforcement mechanisms … as you consider tweaking it, please make sure that it’s practically enforceable.”
