By Charley Falkenburg, Staff Writer
WEST WINDSOR A proposed sign ordinance hit a snag on June 23 when the Township Council and the business community could not reach an immediate compromise on some of the council’s amendments.
Manager Sam Surtees drafted a revised version of the 2009 sign ordinance last fall after conducting research and meeting with both the business and real estate communities. The decision to revise the ordinance stemmed from the large amount of sign waivers the planning and zoning boards have approved over the past 12 years, which is time consuming and requires businesses to pay more money for attorney costs.
The council tweaked six areas of the drafted ordinance at the last meeting, which would decrease the size and limit the time span and location of temporary business, real estate and political signs to cut down on sign pollution within the town.
Its changes included: allowing political signs to go up 45 days before an election instead of 60 days, knocking down the height for temporary signs from 6 feet to 4 feet, prohibiting real estate directional weekend signs from roundabouts and landscape medians and limiting the size of political signs to 16 square feet in both residential and commercial areas.
The council also stressed the need to ban real estate directional weekend signs on Fridays and shave the two-year life span of free standing real estate signs on commercial properties down to six months with a possible six-month extension.
But representatives from the Mercer County Association of Realtors, Sills Cummis & Gross law firm and the West Windsor Business Task Force told the council they preferred the proposed sign ordinance in its current drafted form.
Dave DePaolo, an executive member of Mercer County Association of Realtors, was particularly concerned with giving temporary signs on commercial property a six-month deadline.
”Six months isn’t enough time, it just isn’t realistic in our business. In addition, more than 50 percent of inquiries on commercial space come off the signs,” said Mr. Depaolo. “Our goal is to use signs as a tool to help the customer with a need and that need may be to rent or lease commercial property.”
Councilman Bryan Maher said Mr. DePaolo’s view was relevant and asked him what he thought was a fair amount of time in attempt to reach a compromise.
However, Mr. DePaolo said anything less than 24 months was unreasonable. He added that past tense signs such as “sold” or “leased” need to stay up also to improve consumer confidence.
”It’s important to be able to demonstrate that people are making decisions and things are happening,” said Mr. DePaolo.
Councilman George Borek suggested bumping the time frame up to 18 months, while Mr. Maher said he could only agree to a year with a potential six-month extension.
Council President Kamal Khanna told council members they need to be business friendly and give the business community as much help as possible, but Mr. Maher pointed out there are other avenues such as the Internet to sell or lease spaces.
”We’ve been business friendly,” said Mr. Maher. “We’re trying to reign in the abuses to go totally business friendly would be total anarchy.”
Mr. DePaolo also emphasized the importance of being able to put directional real estate signs up on Fridays citing that traffic patterns are different on weekends, which allow more potential customers to drive by them.
Councilman George Borek acknowledged many realtors abide by the regulations, but asked Mr. DePaolo if there was a way to make sure everyone would comply with the ordinance.
Mr. DePaolo said they don’t have a lot of authority to enforce laws, but that they are proactive in getting the information out to its company members.
”We have the initiative, the desire and the mechanism to get the information out and push to make sure people comply,” he added. “We don’t want to create a sour taste in the community’s mouth. We want people to know we’re doing the right thing.”
Former council member Alison Miller was concerned the amendments to the size and time span of political signs would hinder people’s freedom of speech.
”Beautification is beautiful, but wasting your time and township resources on what people may say is a terrible waste,” said Ms. Miller. “Even if the ordinance is passed in this form, I hope we don’t have zoning officers going around and bothering about who says what and when politically.”
Township Attorney Michael Herbert said the Supreme Court ruled that there are certain limitations on political speech, such as prohibiting large signs that might block driveways or obscure roadways. He confirmed the town is able to regulate the duration of signs to a reasonable amount of time.
After listening to the various perspectives, the council decided to send the proposed ordinance to the Planning Board for an informal review to get their recommendations.
Mr. Surtees said he would ask the boards for specific guidance on the amount of time temporary real estate signs can stay up and whether to allow directional weekend signs on Fridays.
Mr. Surtees estimated the ordinance would be back before the council some time in September.

