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01/15/2018 11:00 PMReceipt of a $20,000 Westbrook Foundation grant to offset the costs of an electronic sign board? Check. Approval to spend the project funding needed to buy and install a municipal electronic notice sign? Check. Choice of Stewart Signs as the town’s vendor? Check. Approvals from the Zoning Commission to install the sign? Not yet.
Town leaders learned last fall that a planned electronic notice board in front of the Mulvey Municipal Center at 866 Boston Post Road would not conform to sign rules included in the town’s zoning regulations. Two features of such signs were prohibited under zoning: first, that they are back-lit with internal illumination and second, they have moving lights that zip along as the notices and announcements change. Neither features are permitted on signs installed in town under the zoning rules in force at that time.
To move forward with the project, the town had to seek an amendment to the zoning rules, but before the town did that, First Selectman Noel Bishop in a September 2017 letter to the commission asked it to amend the sign rules under Section 10.27.01 Illuminations
by adding an item 3—”with the sole exception of signs owned and maintained by the Municipal Government of the Town of Westbrook and used exclusively to promote civic events and/or to preserve, protect and promote the general public’s health, safety, and welfare.”
On Nov. 28, 2017, the Zoning Commission held a public hearing on a proposed zoning text amendment. The proposed amendment, which would modify the Illuminations
section of the sign rules to permit installation of electronic signs owned by the municipal government if a special permit is first secured from the Zoning Commission, was adopted following the hearing.
Now residents will have to wait a little longer while the town’s application for a special permit proceeds through the Zoning Commission special permit process.
The Selectman’s Office confirmed the town will file a zoning permit application this month that, if approved, would allow the installation of an electronic sign by the town in front of the Mulvey Municipal Center. The new sign would replace the wooden sign board on which town notices have for many years been posted using removable plastic letters.
Typically, the town’s Zoning Commission will take a minimum of two months to act upon a permit application. At the first meeting, the commission will officially receive the application and possible schedule a public hearing to open at the commission’s next meeting. After the public hearing has closed, the commission will usually act on the application.
For this proposal, that means the town’s application would be received at the Zoning Commission meeting in the first month (possibly the Tuesday, Jan. 23 meeting at 7 p.m. at the Mulvey Center), a public hearing scheduled at the second month’s commission meeting, and possible action on it at the same meeting or a subsequent meeting.
What does this mean for Westbrook residents? The town probably won’t secure a special permit to install the new sign until at least March 2018.
Electronic sign boards have become a popular way to provide the public with public safety messages during storms or other emergencies and for posting announcements of votes and community events. Municipal electronic signs are in place at Old Saybrook’s Town Green on Main Street, in front of the Old Saybrook High School on the Boston Post Road, and at the Middle School on Sheffield Street. The Town of Clinton also has an electronic notice sign installed on the Boston Post Road in front of the Town Hall Annex.