By Kim Siebert MacPhail
Last night, after the debate rule that limits article presentations to 10 minutes was waived so that Articles 6 through 15 could be presented together; and after a motion to waive the five minute limitation on public response and comments failed; and after questions about how the proposed revisions would affect such matters as sign placement and size, plus the ability of businesses to increase the visibility of their locations, all 10 of the proposed sign bylaw amendments passed easily, ultimately with very little resistance.
To see a summary of the bylaw amendments, visit: https://thebedfordcitizen.org/2013/03/28/recommendations-of-the-ad-hoc-sign-bylaw-review-committee-articles-6-through-15/
At the beginning of the presentation, Sign Bylaw Review Committee Chair Jeff Cohen—also a member of the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals—said that the Committee’s work was only partially complete and that more revisions would be forthcoming at future Town Meetings. He then described the process by which the Committee was formed and how it had gathered input from a broad range of stakeholders before arriving at last night’s Annual Town Meeting.
“I knew from talking to [various people with interests in how signs were regulated] that we would get a very diverse input and a wide spectrum of opinion. . . .We’ve had many comments from a vast array of interested parties [since the Sign Bylaw Committee was convened],” Cohen began.
“Rather than rewrite or recodify the entire bylaw from scratch, this Committee decided to focus on amending the current document to address its most pressing deficiencies. We sought to amend the confusing language and ambiguities to make it easier to interpret; we sought to change the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to signage in town and to eliminate cross-referencing between districts. We wanted to make the sign bylaw more business friendly, while respecting [the] Bedford aesthetic character,” Cohen continued.
“After reviewing the sign bylaw cover-to-cover, we identified dozens of edits and amendments in response to comments we received, that varied from minor grammatical and semantic tweaks to more significant dimensional amendments, district specific recommendations, and addressing legal advice from Town Counsel.
“Did we propose changes that address everything that everybody wanted us to do? No, we did not do that,” Cohen explained. “However, we did propose changes that we believe represent a reasonable balance and compromise [for] many of the comments that we did received.
“Presenting so many amendments this way does present some challenges,” Cohen admitted. “There’s a lot of material to read. . . .Had we brought them to the floor of Town Meeting piecemeal, one-by-one, we would have turned this into the Sign Bylaw Town Meeting. So, in considering the articles, if you find a comment that offers a little minor, semantic concern, please let us know about it because, as our work continues, we’ll address those minor inconsistencies.
“But,” Cohen concluded, “we ask you to consider the bigger picture—the sum total of what’s proposed and what we’re trying to accomplish. The Sign Bylaw is an imperfect document and we’re doing our best to try to improve that.”
The articles were then described in detail, and questions from citizens followed.
Carol Amick spoke of inconsistencies in how non-commercial and political signs were handled in the revisions, saying that a five-foot setback from the street for one [type of sign] and not the other should be corrected. The Committee responded that the setback was to avoid signs that were blocking drivers’ sightlines, but that it would clarify the inconsistency.
Jim O’Neil expressed dissatisfaction that older commercial signs would be “grandfathered” and allowed to remain standing, even though they would not be in compliance with newly amended dimension limitations.
Alethea Yates commented that there was too much information to absorb all at once. She then made a motion for indefinite postponement of all 10 articles. The motion failed with a count of 39 for, 115 against.
Joy Kenen asked for clarification on the subject of freestanding signs, saying she was uncertain what voters were being asked to approve. Mike Bahtiarian also asked about “sandwich board” or freestanding signs, saying that the Town itself is the biggest user of the latter kind of sign. Cohen responded that, as non-commercial signs, this style of sign is exempt from prohibition.
Bahtiarian also commented that he found barber poles, addressed by Article 7, to be archaic. “I’m a little struck—I must be missing something—on the revolving barber pole sign. I’m just barely old enough to remember [this]. I need someone to explain why we’re going back to that. It’s a sign signifying a certain type of business. If florists had a certain kind of sign—a big revolving flower—should that be allowed? Does [the barber pole] include stylists? Could I have a little background [on the issue]? “
Cohen responded that several local barbershops had come before the Zoning Board [ZBA] with requests to install an internally lit, revolving barber pole and that because those kinds of signs are prohibited— but are iconic to the business— the ZBA struggled with how to rule fairly on the question. The agreed-upon revision makes an allowance specifically for the barber pole, and thereby clears up the ambiguity.
Adam Schwartz and Pam Brown, both of the Chamber of Commerce, each spoke for the business community in town, saying that small businesses with shallow pockets struggled for visibility under the current sign bylaw. Brown said, “It’s critically important to pass all of these articles to make sure that we make the bylaw clearer, while also trying to accommodate the interests of the town of Bedford in having aesthetically pleasing signs and our small businesses that we desperately want to be here instead of big box stores.”
Before the amendments were voted upon, Cohen thanked the citizens for their questions and comments and encouraged anyone interested to apply to fill the remaining vacancy on the Committee.
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