HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes COM 02-02-21emergency access at that point is going to be subordinate and light from emergency vehicles responding.
We would like to leave it where it is.
• The sidewalk requirement for Washington Blvd., Mr. Bodner has agreed to pay in -lieu at this point.
• We discussed the elevation for the garage storage building meant for site maintenance equipment. A
revision is available (Dumpster Revision for COMin Laserfiche). Commissioner Brad Grabow was
concerned about the gable, as it was presented, not being in harmony with the building structures. Now we
have connected the west dumpster and the shed into a single building to save a little bit of cost with a
common wall down the middle. We have been in discussion with Rachel Keesling the past few days. Her
eagle eye caught a problem with symmetry at the middle section on the south elevation. Right now, the
graphic is showing the structure coming to the middle of the common wall. We are going to move that to
the west face of the common wall and will take care the symmetry problem without getting in the way of
dumpster access and maintenance there.
• The site plan has been updated.
• The landscape plan has been approved.
• The elevations have been updated. We will retain the elevation for the east dumpster as was presented
earlier.
• Signs will be present as tenants are confirmed. That will be the administrative ADLS Amend process.
• The only outstanding issue is addressing any concerns that come out of the ongoing Engineering discussion.
We feel many of those may have been already addressed in the revised drawings but will upload those and
finish the TAC (Technical Advisory Committee) review comments.
• We respectfully request your approval tonight.
Alan Potasnik: Kevin, at the Commission meeting, Commissioner Nick Kestner brought up access to the third row
of parking. Did you address that? Kevin Buchheit: Yes. We are taking out two parking spaces and adding a striped
connection between them. That will empty the pedestrians from the far drive aisle to about the midpoint of the
middle and east buildings.
Department Report: Rachel Keesling:
• As Kevin mentioned there were a few outstanding issues from the Commission meeting.
• The front door pedestrian access from Pennsylvania St. has been added.
• The Side Yard Setback on the north has been increased to 10-ft. as required by the UDO.
• Nick Kestner's questions about a safe pedestrian access through the middle of parking lot was just
addressed.
• The Washington Blvd., Non -Reverting Throughfare Fund contribution for the sidewalk will be done.
• The underlighting of the soffits on the building for illumination of the fagade and the walkways was
mentioned.
• The Urban Forester has approved the landscape plan.
• The last comment was regarding Engineering Department approval which will be ongoing.
• Staff recommends approval tonight.
Jeff motions to approve Docket PZ-2020-00210 & PZ-2020-00225 subject to all Engineering Department
comments being addressed, Kevin seconds, motion passes 4-0.
8. Docket No. PZ-2020-00119 OA: Sign Standards Amendments.
The applicant seeks to amend the Unified Development Ordinance in order to amend Section 5.39 Sign Standards,
Sections 7.11 & 7.12 Entryway Feature Standards, Section 5.66 Food Stand Use Standards, Section 1.29 Filing
Fees, and Definitions for signage. Filed by the Department of Community Services on behalf of the Carmel Plan
Commission.
Petitioner: Nathan Chavez (Department of Community Services — Sign Administrator):
• I am going to share my screen and review changes that have occurred since the January 51 Committee
meeting.
• I was first asked to review the fee of $0.25 for Construction wraps. I researched fee increases for the
Department of Community Services. I found that fees increase based on the Consumer Price Index. At
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$0.25 the fee will only increase if the Consumer Price Index increases by 4% that year. If the fee were lower
than $0.25 it would take a 5% increase, which I am not sure if that has ever happened or not. The last
instance of a 4% increase was 2003. This is another reason Staff feels that $0.25 is appropriate, because the
fee will eventually increase but not drastically over time. Really this is the appropriate fee. Again, the fee is
based on the square footage of signage.
The second point, and an idea I've had, based on recent trends with drive-thrus, currently drive-thru
establishments, such as McDonalds and Steak N' Shake propose two drive thru lanes instead of the
traditional one. Listening to something Kevin Rider once said, "Why would we need a variance, when we
can just put this into the ordinance? We need to avoid variances more." I am proposing the Drive-Thru Food
Service section (Line 535) to allow for signage based on number of drive-thrus. This is just an additional
sign and 30 sq. ft. Two great examples are the McDonalds at Carmel Dr. and Keystone (750 E. Carmel Dr.)
and the Freddy's Frozen Custard on Michigan Rd. (9835 N. Michigan Rd.). This way we can avoid the
variance process, allow signs outright, and get businesses permits quicker.
Another addition is Canopy Signs. Carmel has seen heavy urbanization in our core. Developments in
Midtown, City Center, and the Proscenium are seeing more and more signs installed on metal canopies.
Currently we use the Wall Sign standards, where a Spandrel Panel is identified to determine size. This has
led to mixed results and some frustration from business owners, property owners, and sign companies. I
researched other municipal codes and I found provisions for Canopy Signs. Specifically, they limit signage
to a maximum of 24" or 2-ft., in height and the width is determined based on the canopy width. I am going
to show some examples throughout the City (Document titled Canopy Sign Examples). This includes Fork +
Ale in Midtown, Financial Partners Group just to the south of Sun King, Java House recently came in, I
don't have a completion photo quite yet, Trueblood is to the north of Financial Partners, and lasty Physique
57 was proposed recently. Over the past two weeks I found all the signs that are considered Canopy Signs
and I crunched the numbers for their height. On the screen is the current height of all the signs and their
average, which is sitting as 23.86" (Document titled Canopy Numbers). Last week I ran along the Monon
looking for these signs and I noticed that these buildings, canopies, and signs are meant for an urbanized
pedestrian scale. They are next to streets with low speed limits and there isn't a need to have tall signage.
The Trueblood sign is 26.75" tall and if one is on the Monon, this sign will look out of character. It looks
too large. As a contrast, just next to it, is the Financial Partners Group sign. With the logo the sign is 23" in
height and I would argue it is perfectly scaled for the building, which is why 1 am proposing a 24"
maximum. With regards to the width I studied the three earlier mentioned developments and took note of
the canopy length. With smaller canopies there needs to be more wiggle room for signage. With larger
canopies, such as Fork + Ale there needs to be a constraint on how large a sign can be. For example, we
wouldn't want a business to have the logo and name and then list out every single item they sell. Currently,
the proposed standards allow 90% of a tenant's canopy length if 14-ft. or less and 70% of a tenant's canopy
length if greater than 14-ft.. Truthfully, I am still reviewing these numbers and proposals.
Rachel Keesling: I want to tell the Committee that I wish I would have thought of this. I think it does solve
the need that we have. I am really glad it is proposed now.
With the introduction of the Canopy Signs, they are written in the Sign Standards, so it covers all types of
buildings and uses. I would liken this type of sign to Awning Signs, where it may be used as a primary sign
or as a secondary sign, if for example an individual or business decides to have a Wall sign on their building
then they can use leftover square footage for a Canopy Sign. I believe this was recently used for a hotel on
US 31 and 126t' St. (Avid Hotel 19050014 DP/ADLS). This allows for greater flexibility in the urban core,
as well as other newer buildings in the City.
Moving on to changes in the Ground Sign chart (page 19). An intern and I analyzed every single Ground
Sign that was approved from 2018 to 2020. Page 23 is a chart I already showed at Commission. I would like
you all to focus on a number of things. The second column is the existing sign area. Best Friends Hotel
exists at 19.83 sq. ft. The next column shows what is allowed today based on the current Sign Standards.
Given the distance from the right-of-way and the building/tenant frontage, this is how we determine how
large and tall a Ground sign may be, 45 sq. ft. is allowed for Best Friends Hotel. The fourth column shows
what would be allowed based on the proposed Sign Standards. I made changes to the Ground Sign Chart
and then I determined what would be allowed per the changes to the Sign Standards, based on setbacks and
street frontage. What we are finding is if these same signs were applied for today, in most instances, except
11 cases, there is still leftover square footage, even if the Ground Sign chart were reduced. Businesses are
not utilizing all their square footage. And even with a proposed reduction in what is allowed, there is still so
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much unused square footage to have an extra sign, if we still went by that rule. The second largest takeaway
is the `Distance from ROW (ft.)' column. Businesses are placing their sign as close to the road as possible.
And this makes sense. People want their signs up to the road for greater visibility and greater advertising.
• To clarify, this is mostly hypothetical, all signs that have been approved are grandfathered in. And if a sign
were to just reface then the existing size is unaffected. There are no negative or ill affects towards what
currently is installed in the ground unless there is a change in the structure of the Ground Sign.
• Moving back to the Ground Sign chart, the first proposal is to reduce the setback bracket to smaller
increments because people have signage closer to the road, there is no need to have 5-50, 51-100, and so on
and so forth. It is more beneficial to make this smaller and tailor it to what people are actually doing with
their signage. I almost entirely removed the last bracket, 201-300 feet. And instead just made this 101+ feet.
If a sign is 101+ feet removed, then a business may have 75 sq. ft. of signage. It doesn't matter what the
building frontage is, and they can have 8-ft. in height. The next big change is reduction of the maximum
sign area. Really this is based off the smallest number in a bracket. For example, 5-30 feet setback with
under 50 feet of building frontage is allowed 30 sq. ft. currently. I just increased by 5 sq. ft. for each
increased in building frontage. I had multiple Excel documents with calculations trying to determine how
this would affect signs and if the existing signs were hypothetically applied for today. Really there is not
much of a difference. The signs that would be affected, such as Shamrock Self Storage or Shoppes at
Weston Pointe, are signs that my predecessor approved because the Sign were compliant, but he received
pushback from individuals whether it was other businesses or government officials. "Why was this sign
allowed? This sign is too big." This change stems from those issues he had when he was simply following
the Sign Standards.
• One thing I want to preface, is when I was rewriting these Sign Standards, whenever I would make a change
or deletion, I would always think to myself, `What is an instance where this will not make sense? Where a
variance may be needed?' I did my best to think of the entire City from east to west and north to south, how
would this negatively affect businesses or where would an exception occur to what is proposed. What I
found is that there is always going to be an exception, there is going to be one outlier where there is a
structure that was built for residential and converted to commercial, but is outside the area where these types
of structures and uses exist. Or I think, `Where is an office building that is allowed a sign facing a Street
Frontage, but unfortunately they face a residential neighborhood?' I have gone through many iterations of
the Sign Standards and have talked through concerns and circumstances with Rachel Keesling and Mike
Hollibaugh. What is proposed is the most appropriate standards given trends in the City with regards to
signs and development, while also protecting residential and business uses.
• Moving to Food Stand Use -Specific Standards (line 738), this is a small change where the section is now
referred to the 5.39 Sign Standards. And then the requirement, `...and shall not exceed ten (10) square feet
in area.' is removed. Again, this is following the trend to tie all the sign standards of the UDO into one
section.
• Residential Entryway Feature Standards (line 747). The Entryway Feature Standards, including commercial
(line 809), were introduced when the UDO was adopted. It didn't necessarily fit within the City of Carmel
and was a new concept. I found other instances of this section in other municipal UDO's, that the company
we hired to create our UDO was also hired to create. All of my proposed changes are gearing what was
written back in 2017 and molding it so it fits with the Carmel Sign Standards and the Carmel UDO. This
part of the UDO has been used a handful of times. Off the top of my head I can think of three or four. At its
best it allows for a slightly taller structure for subdivisions and developments, that keeps signage below 6-ft.
in height and within the Sign Standards for size. At its worst, it has allowed a developer to build a structure
right on a sidewalk (See page 7 of document titled Exhibits for 03-15-21 Common Council). This should
never have happened and my office went back and forth with the developer for quite some time about this
particular sign and the revisions will ensure that a sign and its structure is not in the right-of-way or
interferes with any sort of pedestrian traffic. Kevin Rider: They actually built that sign into the sidewalk.
Nathan Chavez: it was not a pleasant day for me or the sign company when I asked them what was going
on with this.
• At Commission Brad Grabow had general questions about subdivision signs and how they are taking on a
more commercial look and that the lighting may be overt. One of the best examples I can provide is
Springmill Ridge. It is a nice -looking sign, it is a little bright, and was never formally approved or
permitted. That is a code enforcement issue that I will work on. But how this relates to the petition, is in
yellow (lines 801-802 & 806-807). I am proposing, `If externally illuminated, only ground mounted cutoff
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fixtures shall be used.' and `Illumination levels shall not exceed 0.1 foot-candles at the property line.' This
is meant to promote low level externally illuminated signs, which aren't too bright for residential areas.
Lastly, with these sections, I have referred them back to the 5.39 Sign Standards sections for both
Residential and Non -Residential Entryway Features (lines 755-756 & 816-817). I also reworked the
language so that both sections match each other. Before the subsections were in different order. The
proposed is much clearer.
Lastly, there are the revisions and additions of the definitions (line 856). I have gone through most of these
during my presentations with the Committee during the various subject matter. The two newest additions,
`Canopy: A permanent shelter supported entirely from the exterior wall of a building and composed of rigid
materials.' and `Sign, Canopy: A Sign located on a permanent roof -like structure or canopy of rigid material
extending from the building entrance. Permanent Canopies attached to the Building shall be considered
separate of the structure.' were recently added. They follow similar definitions, for example the Canopy
definition is similar to the definition of the Awning definition and parts of the Canopy Sign definition are
similar to the Awning Sign definition.
Kevin Rider: Nathan you have been very thorough, professional, and have done a great job. I appreciate all
your work. Nathan Chavez: It helps when I have a Committee that asks great questions and challenges me
to give better answers and look more thoroughly at things. Joshua Kirsh: I think it says more that Rachel
wishes she came up with something. That is the tell -tale sign of a good project. Your department continues
to outdo yourselves. Thank you. Alan Potasnik: You did a fine job.
I recommend this item be sent to Plan Commission with favorable recommendation, subject to Staff
reexamining the newly proposed Canopy signs. I want to make sure this is the right move.
Kevin motions to forward Docket PZ-2020-00119 to Plan Commission with favorable recommendation,
subject to Staff reexamining the newly proposed Canopy signs, Joshua seconds, motion passes 4-0.
Meeting adjourned at 7:37 PM.
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Nathan Chavez Recording Secretary
Alan Potasnik Committee Chairman
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