Last year, the Huntington Common Council http://www.huntington.in.us/ tried to pass a signage bill that caused a huge backlash from local business owners. It called for limited sign space, amount and placement. The proposal was defeated.
In March of this year, they tried again. For a second time, the proposal was defeated. The proposal from the Huntington Planning Commission contained 35 pages and was not business friendly. So back to the drawing board. Now they have planned a vote for this coming Tuesday.
According to Councilman Jason Fields, “ It's not perfect. But they addressed a lot of our concerns. They changed quite a bit and for the better.”
Even though the proposal is still quite long, the members of the planning commission made several changes that were suggested by members of the council. A few of the major rewritings to the proposal include:
The section regarding window signs. Originally the proposal required window signs to be of a certain size. This section was removed, allowing business owners to place window signs of any size.
Business logos will now be allowed on a business's directional sign.
In the original proposal, there was some censorship. But a section disallowing profane language was removed.
In the industrial areas, the size limit for wall signage was increased from 64 feet to 200 feet.
One of the veto voters, Councilman Erv Ebersole said “I'm probably more in favor of it than I was before. The couple changes they made were good. Though, I wish they could have shortened it a bit.” He went on to say that he would probably vote in favor of the proposal.
The next vote comes at a meeting this Tuesday at 7:00 pm, on the third floor of the City Building. If the proposal is voted down again, another sign proposal can not be submitted for the period of one year.
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