Editor’s Note: In Wednesday’s edition, The Dispatch incorrectly reported on several tenets of the proposed unified development code in Starkville, specifically as it related to signs on Highway 182. Reporter Tyler B. Jones sat down with City Planner Daniel Havelin on Monday to clarify those issues.
STARKVILLE — The potential updates on Starkville’s unified development code would make sign ordinances in the city less restrictive rather than stricter.
Along Highway 182, signs were slated to be taken down in May due to the city’s sign ordinance passed in 2011 unless the signs are affected by the BUILD Grant project.
Businesses on this street were not allowed to have any type of sign, but because of the proposed changes, these businesses now have some options for signage.
City Planner Daniel Havelin said these changes will not remove any alternatives for businesses but instead give them an option to have a sign altogether.
“The intent of this update is not to take them away, but to allow them,” Havelin said.
While no business is required to have any kind of sign at their venue, existing businesses along Highway 182 would be allowed to erect monument signs of a maximum of 60 square feet with a maximum height of six feet under the new unified development code. Monument signs shall only be allowed on lots where the existing building exceeds the maximum setback for that zoning district. Corner lots are not eligible for monument sign types unless approved as a “use exception,” exceptions that do not significantly alter any building, sign, accessory structure or site associated with the use and have additional design standards.
Zoning districts serve different purposes and impose their own set of requirements and restrictions on the use of land and structures in addition to the general requirements imposed on all land within Starkville. For example, Main Street is a form-based district while the area around Cornerstone Park is a commercial district. Havelin said each sign in the city is regulated by type and place.
The city is striving to make the areas along Highway 182 and Lampkin and Russell Streets, the parts of the city surrounding Main Street, more “urban,” Havelin said. In an urban environment, there are no monument signs, but other types of signs such as wall signs and suspended signs.
While existing buildings that have not been redeveloped in urban areas would be allowed to have monument signs with the new updates to the UDC, any new business in urban areas will have different requirements for their signs and have to follow particular setbacks, or how far away a building is from the street. These setbacks must be between zero-to-15 or two-to-15 feet based on where they are located in the city.
“What we’re saying is we want the form of the building to be this,” Havelin said. “The uses are flexible on the inside. If you want to mix offices and residential, have at it, but we want the building to address the street in a certain manner and to have a certain presence on a street to create that urban environment because without it you get a suburban feel like Highway 12.”
Any business along Highway 12 can have a monument sign because it is not an area where people walk as often to and from places, such as downtown, Havelin said. Tenants along Highway 12 have until May 2022 to remove any other kind of sign, such as pole signs, from their premises in order to avoid fines.
“Any new sign that has been in place on Highway 12 has either been a monument sign or a multi-tenant sign,” Havelin said.
Havelin said an amendment to yard signs has also been added to the UDC. Currently, residents are only allowed to place a standard four-square-foot yard sign on any property, but if the amendments are followed through, 16-foot signs can be placed on vacant non-residential or mixed-use district zoned property or 32 feet if located adjacent to Highway 82 and/or Highway 25 where the posted speed limit is 60 mph or more.
Havelin said he, along with assistant city planner Odie Avery, will try to keep the UDC as up to date as possible. He said some previous sections of the code have not been updated since the 1970s causing conflicting regulations, and he now wants to make the UDC a more “living” document.
“Even if it’s just changing language or we might have found a typo in it, something like that, we’re going to continuously update it to make sure it functions in the future,” Havelin said.
Food trucks may also see changes in the near future.
Proposed amendments to the Starkville Code of Ordinances will distinguish regulations for food trucks on private property and those on the streets in the city.
A mobile food vendor wanting to sell its products on the street, not on private property, must park at least 50 feet away from the front door of any nearby existing restaurants.
Food trucks now must also have a sound buffering generator to eliminate noise, such as putting a wall around the generator that pushes the sound straight up in the air, Havelin said. The generator shall not operate at 65 decibels or above measured at 25 feet from the generator.
Food trucks on private property must follow rules outlined in the UDC because it’s a “use issue” rather than a business, Avery said.
“Let’s say a food truck wants to park in the street in front of Starkville Cafe,” Avery said. “That would not be allowed, but let’s say Starkville Cafe owns this parking lot behind them, and they gave permission for a food truck to park there, then that would be OK because it falls under private property.”
The board of aldermen held its first public hearing on these proposed changes at its Dec. 7 meeting and will have another public hearing Dec. 21 where Mayor Lynn Spruill said the board will likely vote on the matter.
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