Oakhurst Sign Ordinance

[beautiful_mess38]

http://www.sierrastar.com/news/story/13693323p-14282060c.html

[Yosemite_Wolf]

You know that the businesses are gonna take that law to court!! Oakydoke is gonna look so much better with out all those signs. We are NOT Fresburg.

[Ironhorse]

Yes, it would look so much better without the signs, and I suspect you are right that there will be some places that try to take the county to court. I do know that about 6 or 7 years ago, a county code enforcement officer came up here from the valley and started ordering businesses to take their signs down and threatening them with citations. He left with his tail between his legs and nothing was ever done about the signs, but try as I might, I never could find out the details.

[Michelle]

I just have to ask how come they were put up in the first place. I mean the county should of said something when all this was built right?
I have to agree it would look so much better if the signs were gone...:yes:

[Surfus]

I just have to ask how come they were put up in the first place. I mean the county should of said something when all this was built right?
I have to agree it would look so much better if the signs were gone...:yes:
the Sign Police went into affect on Dec. 2, 1993 and most of the LARGE signs where there already.
In fact Taco Bell was not built yet but in the works and they put up the LARGE sign just before went into affect on Dec. 2, 1993.
Mr. Brown the owner of the Vons and enterprise center knows about this and has know about it when the center was built.

[Ironhorse]

Well, the county owns a large part of the problem for allowing signs to be put up after the ordinance was passed that didn't meet the new requirements. Also for not bringing businesses into compliance when new businesses opened in places where old ones used to be (i.e., Hondo's). For the 15 years that the ordinance has been in existence, they have been lax on new signs going up. I suspect they will be experiencing a lot of headaches for that oversight in the coming few months. Like I said, I'm in favor of the signs coming down, etc. and it looking better, but the county sat there, on their collective butts, for all this time and did nothing, and now they jump on their little bandwagon and start screaming "you only have 5 months to fix this" to the business community. Owners have changed, managers have changed and some of these people honestly didn't know. And if the county grants one variance (say to Carl's Jr.), they will have to grant other variances. So, now they've created an "all or nothing, comply or die situation". Talk about poor management. But then that's typical. Glad I'm not a business owner........ Of course I won't be surprised when politics enters in to this and someone complains to a supervisor who is a friend of theirs and they get a variance, but the poor schmuck who doesn't have a friend on the board applies and can't get one...............

[Dodgergirl]

I remember discussing this with Surf when Taqueria was putting up their roof sign. I can't see why theirs is OK, while the BOWL sign isn't... wonder who got paid off.

I know WaMu jumped right on this and made calls to corporate to rectify the situation, but I still gotta wonder why is was allowed in the first place?

I see many of homeowners up here building and being allowed to build, only when the time comes to sell their properties, a certain amount of their square footage isn't counted in the description.. you see many "bonus rooms" in the descriptions.

As for the sign ordinance, I think 18 months should be enough time for everyone to comply, even those who honestly believe they "didn't know" anything about it. As for the corporate stores who will most likely fight it, they can put up a business in a few months (well, except for J in the B):rofl: so changing out a sign should be pretty quick & easy for them...

[Lacey]

I am very happy I'm not a business owner in Oakhurst. If the town had been built with being visible to consumers in mind, it would make sense to have all signs small and accommodating. But the way Oakhurst is put together, if a business owner can't put up a readable sign, they won't be found. In my opinion, the signs should be allowed. They should just have a criteria for how they look. So that the signs themselves add to the appearance of the town. I know signage is expensive for a business owner, but at least they would have a choice of putting something up in compliance or having nothing at all.

[Surfus]

I remember discussing this with Surf when Taqueria was putting up their roof sign. I can't see why theirs is OK, while the BOWL sign isn't... wonder who got paid off.

...

I posted this once last night but I think it got deleted?

The sign on the Ridge of the roof will need to come down. As well as the flashing OPEN SIGNS. If im reading the rules correctly.
The sign on the front of the building the county said it is in compliance because the do not have a Road sign. But according to the rules you can only have the sq footage of sign = to the linear footage of store frontage. So if they have 70 feet across the front of the building they can have a total of 70 Sq feet of signage INCLUDING ANY THING IN THE WINDOWS AND OPEN SIGNS. So how I read it the sign is too large.
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As for the bowling alley I think the BOWL sign they are talking about is the BOWL sign that is facing the Raleys parking lot on the SIDE of the Bowling alley.
They have a sign on the front of the Bowling alley and the road sign so they have too much sign sq footage.

[jjcheyenne]

I think if these businesses are forced to take their signs down, they are going to lose business. Oakhurst is a tourist town. People on vacation coming to Oakhurst don't know the town. They are going to look for signs to see where the places are. If there is no visible sign, they are not going to know where to go. It is also going to cause traffic problems. People are going to have to drive slower and hunt down the places they are looking for. It is probably going to cause traffic tie ups. People looking for an address or building usually play "speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down". It is going to be a nightmare!

[Ironhorse]

I think the businesses can be found if they put up appropriate, legal signs. As for the addresses, well, those are next to impossible to see on the buildings now and they should all have to display them better. Sometimes, people need to slow down a bit more going through the town. The businesses has created some of the problems by trying to one up each other with their signs, almost to the point that many of the signs are difficult to see anyway the way they block each other, etc. There probably is no real good solution...............

[BGW]

I noticed...well actually paid attention to the signs in Coarsegold as I drove through yesterday and for the most part, all of their business signs are down low. Their are a couple signs in the air but I have a feeling they meet a height requirement and I will have to say, the town does seem to maintain a clean and tidy look.

Now, when are the banners on chainlink fences going to be addressed??

[Dodgergirl]

I noticed...well actually paid attention to the signs in Coarsegold as I drove through yesterday and for the most part, all of their business signs are down low. Their are a couple signs in the air but I have a feeling they meet a height requirement and I will have to say, the town does seem to maintain a clean and tidy look.

Now, when are the banners on chainlink fences going to be addressed??


Hey! It was that banner on the chainlink fence that led me to OO. I saw it when I was up here scouting properties..

[ilex]

Out of curiosity....does anyone know where exactly the new signage law applies? Is it directly in town or does it extend beyond the city limits? I tried to read the actual law and could not find the boundaries. It's called the Oakhurst/Ahwahnee Sign law but what does that include?

[BGW]

Try calling the RMA
Madera County Planning Department
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=2>2037 W. Cleveland Ave M.S. G
Madera, CA 93637
Telephone: (559) 675-7821
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

[Pop-Rocks]

Out of curiosity....does anyone know where exactly the new signage law applies? Is it directly in town or does it extend beyond the city limits? I tried to read the actual law and could not find the boundaries. It's called the Oakhurst/Ahwahnee Sign law but what does that include?
from this PDF file http://www.oakhurstchamber.com/documents/OakhurstPlan_withPCMods.pdf


The Planning Area contains approximately 58 square miles, generally centered around the
intersection of Highways 41 and 49 in Oakhurst. Of this area, approximately half is located within
the sparsely populated Sierra National Forest. There are no incorporated cities within the planning area, or in Eastern Madera County generally. The only distinct unincorporated community
within the planning area is the community of Oakhurst, although several small subdivisions are outside this major community concentration, including Yosemite Forks, Sky Ranch, Cedar Valley, and Sugar Pine. Madera and Fresno are the nearest major urban areas, approximately 45 miles to the south, and Yosemite National Park is 10 miles to the north.

PRIOR AND RELATED PLANS
Madera County's original General Plan was adopted in 1969 and included
small area plans for Yosemite Forks, Oakhurst and Ahwahnee, as well as
county-wide land use, transportation and circulation, recreation, and housing
elements. In 1972, an open space and conservation element was added; a
safety element was added in 1977 and a noise element was adopted in 1978.
In 1987, the County amended the open space and conservation element by
adding a mineral resources section. In 1993, the housing element was again
updated. The most comprehensive revision or update of the Madera County General Plan was completed in 1995, and was adopted by the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors at that time.
In addition to the 1969 and 1995 General Plans and adopted elements, the County previously
adopted area plans for North Fork in 1979; O'Neals in 1980; the Oakhurst-Ahwahnee area in
1980; and the Coarsegold community in 1982. More recently, the Gunner Ranch West, Rio
Mesa, State Center Community College, and Gateway Village areas have been subject to area
plans and environmental impact report preparation. In 1999, a separate area plan for the
Ahwahnee community was adopted, thereby updating the 1980 Oakhurst-Ahwahnee Growth
Management Plan for that planning area.

more on the sign police rule we talked about it here

http://forums.yosemitearea.com/showthread.php?p=22083
and here is a direct link to the dumb rule
http://www.madera-county.com/countycode/_DATA/TITLE18/Chapter_18_91_OAKHURST_AHWAHNE.html