Although the Planning Board recommended dismissal of the Sign Bylaw revisions at the March 23, 2013 Town Meeting, the Board continues to work on the bylaw revisions. Check back here for updates and new drafts.
The Sign Working Group has been officially appointed by the Planning Board and consists of 5 at-large members, 1 Planning Board member, 1 representative from the Board of Selectman, and 1 representative from the Economic Development Committee. That group will meet on May 17th at 9:00, location to be anounced and posted ahead of the meeting.
The NEXT Planning Board Public Hearing on the revised sign bylaw at the Planning Board will be: Monday June 3rd at Town Hall, Meeting Room 201. The hearing is scheduled to begin at approximately 7:35 PM. the Planning Board encourages you to submit written comments or questions to the Planning Board by sending them to Chris Kluchman at ckluchman@westfordma.gov
The latest draft of the bylaw is dated 3/3/13. See the documents at the top of this page.
Background
Redesigning the town sign bylaw and ensuring enforcement is part of the 2012 Town Manager Board of Selectmen Goals.
At the 2011 Annual Town Meeting, thanks to a great deal of volunteer support including from the League of Women Voters, voters approved articles that had the effect of reorganizing the prior bylaw, which many found confusing and difficult to follow, to make it more "user friendly" - without only minor changes to content, both prohibiting LED signs, and clarifying time allowances for temporary signs. It was understood that amending the substance of the sign bylaw would be a time-intensive process involving input from residents, businesses and others, and it was agreed that getting the prior bylaw into improved format would be a worthwhile interim step until substantive revisions could be drafted.
Useful References
Context-Sensitive Signage Design
USSC On-Premise Signs Guideline Standards
The Science of Signage: Parallels between Traffic Signs and Business Signs H. Gene Hawkins, Ph.D., P.E.
Materials from United States Sign Council
ContentOverviewforCD2011.pdf
USSC Computation Equations.pdf
USSC Driver Information Load.pdf
USSC Environmental Impact, On-Premise Sign Lighting.pdf
USSC Guideline Standards for On-Premise Signs 08.pdf
USSC Impact of Zoning Regulation.pdf
USSC On-Premise Sign Lighting.pdf
USSC Parallel Sign Legibility.pdf
USSC Relative Visibility, Internal, External On-Premise Sig.pdf
USSC Sign Gallery.pps
USSC Sign Legibility Rules of Thumb.pdf
USSC Sign Legibility, Color & Illumination.pdf
USSC Sign Visibility, Traffic Characteristics.pdf
USSC Traffic Safety Study.pdf
USSCEMC Research Review.pdf
USSCInternal vs. External On-Premise Sign Lighting.pdf
USSCInternally Illuminated Sign Lighting - Effects on Visib.pdf
USSCModelOn-PremiseSignCode.pdf
USSCReal World On-Premise Sign Visibility.pdf
USSCSign Visibility Research and Traffic Safety Overview.pdf
The above links are provided as references, but this should not be construed as an endorsement of their content. Thanks!
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