A proposed amendment to Lexington’s zoning ordinance that would allow an internally illuminated canopy sign at The Gin Hotel, and potentially on other canopies downtown, was back before the Planning Commission last week to add language that would address concerns about allowing this kind of sign downtown.
The proposed amendment was reviewed by both the Planning Commission and the city’s Architectural Review Board earlier this year, with both bodies expressing concerns about allowing this type of sign downtown, including concerns about the brightness of the sign and whether allowing one for the hotel could set a precedent that would allow them in an area of downtown where they might be less appropriate.
City Council discussed the amendment at its regular business meeting on Aug. 7 and requested the Planning Commission work to add language to the proposed amendment to address those concerns.
One suggested change to the amendment was to only allow one canopy sign per building with a minimum street frontage of 40 feet. City planner Arne Glaeser explained to the Planning Commission that 40 feet is being proposed as it would cover not only the hotel but some of the other buildings that have canopies that could potentially utilize this kind of sign, including Nikko’s Grille on North Main Street, the movie theater on Nelson Street and a proposed storefront that John Adamson plans to add to the Washington Street side of the Grand’s building.
Any such sign in the downtown district would be no more than 10 inches in height and cover no more than 5 square feet. The sign also cannot be higher than 20 feet.
Other areas that Planning Commission talked about were potentially adding language to prohibit such signs from being lit during certain overnight hours (the draft presented to Planning Commission proposed having the signs turned off between midnight and 5 a.m.), or possibly setting a limit on the brightness of the lights in some way such as setting a maximum brightness level or only allowing warm lightbulbs, which are more yellow and less bright.
Glaeser said he would look at similar ordinances in other localities and see what standards they set, as well as how best to measure the brightness of the lights.
The Planning Commission also discussed amending the sign standards for the city’s entrance corridor commercial districts on South Main Street and East Nelson Street to allow canopy signs. The main change to the proposed language was to increase the maximum size of the sign from 10 square feet to 15 square feet. As with the downtown signs, the sign can’t exceed 10 inches in height and cannot sit higher than 20 feet from the ground.
The Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the amendments and work to finish drafting the ordinance at its next meeting on Aug. 28.
