Urban Aff airs Committee looks at proposed sign ordinance
By Doug Grindle Community Reporter

Marlborough - The Urban Affairs Committee of the Marlborough City Council will spend every week this summer trying to hone a new sign ordinance that could affect businesses throughout the city.

The committee will consider the changing the existing sign ordinance along the lines of a report issued in June by the specially-organized Sign Ordinance Review Committee.

That committee suggested limitations on commercial signs, specifically that they be made of wood or wood-like material, contain no more than 10 pieces of information, and be no more than eight feet tall.

The Urban Aff airs Committee will devote one hour at each of its weekly meetings between now and September to revising the ordinance.

"The plan is to have a public hearing on [Monday] Sept. 10," said At-Large Councilor Patricia Pope, the chair of Urban Aff airs.

The committee plans to take input from the public at the hearing and report out its findings Monday Sept. 24 to the full City Council, with a full vote on the proposal in October.

There is no guarantee the City Council will approve the changes, Pope said, although she said she expects fellow councilors to have an open mind.

"Some of it might get adopted," Pope said. "All of it might get adopted. None of it might be adopted."

She added that through the summer the Urban Affairs Committee would welcome input from the public. Also serving on the committee are councilors Edward Clancy, Richard Towle, Robert Katz and Scott Schafer.

Local businesses will be able to off er input directly at the summer committee meetings because President of the Marlborough Chamber of Commerce Susanne Morreale Leeber will be sitting in each week as an advisor to the committee.

Pope said the involvement of businesses is key.

"It's something that is very important to the business community," she said. "I think it would be irresponsible to make changes without input from the businesses that are aff ected."

Each week the committee will consider one part of the draft of the proposal, which would replace the existing sign ordnance that has been in place for 20 years, Pope said.

One of the issues in question will be what a sign is meant to do.

"My opinion is the purpose of a sign is to identify a business," Pope said.

One of the purposes of the sign ordinance is to reduce visual clutter in the city.

But the business community sees signs as marketing tools, and one person's clutter might be another person's method of doing business.

"Some people look at signs and they feel it is classified as clutter," Morreale-Leeber said. "Certainly if we had uniform signs it wouldn't look as cluttered. But there is the issue of the businesses getting business."

Morreale-Leeber added that signs are a key part of marketing a business, and signs induce people to use the business because people already know where to go when they need a product or service.

"You say, 'Gee one of these days I'm going to need to do that,'" Morreale-Leeber said. "It's marketing. It's all marketing. Location signs are still marketing signs."

The committee aims to find a way to bridge the issue of whether signs are too large so they are intrusive and too small so they are ineff ective.

Pope acknowledged that signs have a purpose beyond being a mere locator marker. But it can be over-done.

"I think there is a branding to some degree that goes on with a sign," Pope said. "But as for telling you everything that goes on with a business, I think that is a lot to ask of a sign when you are driving down the road."

Both sides said they expect that working together at meetings through the summer will result in a proposal that is good for the city.

"That's one of the reasons we have a representative from the Chamber," Pope said.

"I truly believe that we'll be able to get something that's good for both the business community and the community," Morreale-Leeber said.