Agenda - 05-04-2021; 5-b - Unified Development Ordinance Text Amendments

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347 DRAFT 223 that could somehow be specified. I'm sure the DOT folks could tell you how big the letters need to be to be seen at various 224 speed limits. 225 226 Perdita Holtz: If I could address that,the County does attempt to put a lot of information on those signs. I don't know if 227 you have seen other places in North Carolina where you'll see an 8'/2 x 11 yellow sign that just has a Z on it,which means 228 zoning, and it has the phone number for the planning department. That is how a lot of places advertise that something is 229 happening on the property. We could go to something like that. Having a sign with all the information that we attempt to 230 put on it could result in a 4 ft. by 8 ft. sign and staff puts those up and staff does it in a County vehicle or personal vehicle 231 and that would be pretty big to fit into those vehicles. If there is a general feeling that the sign needs to be larger,we 232 would need to take a look how much we actually try to put on the sign and whether we should try to emulate the Z signs 233 that so many other places use. 234 235 Craig Benedict: Maybe with a website address and a phone number and then with the big Z. That is what people are 236 using now for information gathering. 237 238 Adam Beeman: Maybe not even a bigger sign but taller poles to stand it on so it isn't so low to the ground. That may help 239 visibility. 240 241 Whitney Watson: I would be in favor of less information that is more readable and getting it up higher would be great. 242 243 Lamar Proctor: I agree with Whitney and I think this dovetails into my initial question about putting stuff on the website. 1 244 think it gives better notice to people to have a big Z and say look there's something going on, go here and you can read 245 about it. You're trying to put as much information as you can and I think the big point of the sign is to put people on notice 246 that something is going on. They are not going to get the details from their car but they will get the notice if it's a larger Z 247 than if it's a small signer that could be easily be confused with a work permit or something. 248 249 Perdita Holtz: Understood,the current way it came to be is because people complained that there wasn't enough 250 information on the sign and they had to go somewhere else. 251 252 David Blankfard: Can you also put the date of whatever is going to happen, like on April 10,2021 and then people will 253 know something is happening that day and go find out what it is. 254 255 Michael Harvey: Just to remind the Planning Board that there are statutory minimum requirements you have to post the 256 date,time, location and nature of a public hearing. The problem is getting all that on a sign that the Department of 257 Transportation won't rip down. In the 16 or so years I've been here,we have attempted numerous different sign options 258 and as Craig and Perdita can attest,we've had several sign taken by the North Carolina Department of Transportation 259 over the years. We even had signs removed as part of the Efland Station project because the Department of 260 Transportation said they were too high or were too large and violated their sign policy.We have multiple avenues for 261 information being provided to local residents on the numerous projects that are reviewed by both the Planning Board and 262 the County Commissioners. We've been tasked with studying the issue again and we will do so. I'm not sure we can 263 come up with accommodations that will address everybody's concerns. 264 265 Carrie Fletcher: Since we have a lot of new members, can we go back to having the pre-meeting training sessions to help 266 get people more information on the conditional, non-conditional and some of the new terminology. Those kind of pre- 267 meeting instructional programs for people to learn some of the idiosyncrasies of the Planning Board. 268 269 Perdita: Holtz: Yes,what I did was a series of training sessions which I was planning to start again since we do have new 270 members. That's something that I'll look at doing, as soon as the 160D amendments are adopted. I want be able to give 271 the correct information. 272 273 MOTION by Whitney Watson to recommend approval of the Statement of Consistency,the LIDO Amendments and the 274 Amendments to the Planning Board Rules of Procedure. as proposed by Planning Staff to forward to the Board of County 275 Commissioners for review and consideration. Seconded by Randy Marshall. 276 277 Lamar Proctor Yes 278 Charity Kirk Yes