The Impact of Signs on the Community

As many of you may know, at the City Council meeting last Thursday Council approved new sign regulations for the city. This is a project that the four people on the Policy Subcommittee of the Planning Commission spent months and countless hours putting together to ensure that safe, fair, and balanced regulations would be implemented.

We all know the importance of having an attractive community. When people first drive in to your community, you want to provide a great first impression. Signs play a role in shaping and creating an attractive community. A sign that is too tall, too big, or too small contributes to an out-of-scale look that stands out in the community. Imagine a sign the size of a billboard for Applebee’s. Sure, you could see an Applebee’s was coming up a mile away, but what would it look like closer up. I would venture to say it probably wouldn’t contribute to the overall aesthetics that we want here in Elizabethton.

The new regulations passed by City Council take a different approach to regulating signs that what we have done in the past. Before, signs were regulated by what they said or what symbols they had on it. With the new regulations, the type of zone the business currently is in will determine sign sizes and height.

Temporary signs will also be regulated in a similar manner. These types of signs are permitted in certain zones, but not in others. In addition, different sign types are permitted as well as off-premise temporary signage. This would allow businesses to display their temporary signage off-premise so long as it would be allowed in that particular zone.

A few changes were also made to help improve the aesthetics of signs. One is the requirement that all permanent signs must have a landscape area around all freestanding signs. This would require bushes, flowers, or simply just grass around the base of a freestanding sign. Freestanding pole signs would also be required to enclose the pole support structure. This will help prevent rusting of the metal and give the overall sign a more pleasant look.

Many of the changes both the Planning Commission and the City Council believe will help make Elizabethton a better, more attractive place to live and visit. It’s important to remember that no sign regulation is perfect, but we believe this is a start in the right direction. We do want to hear from you! What additional improvements can we make to the sign regulations? How would you like to see signs regulated in our community? Let’s talk about it!

From www.ClarksvilleOnline.com.

CCT Isn't the Problem...Lack of Foresight Is

If you are a dedicated reader of the Star, then I'm sure you're tired of continually reading about Carter County Tomorrow lawsuit (as I am). However, I continue to hear a lot of, in my opinion, misinformed talk about how and why Carter County Tomorrow organization needs to be dismantled.

One of the biggest reasoning I hear is that CCT has not done anything since its inception. This reasoning then immediately spills over into discussion about how much better another economic development agency would be.

First, I would argue national and industrial trends suggest that CCT has had little control over the local economy during a majority of its existence. What control they have had has been positive. We've not fully recovered from the Great Recession yet, but our growth pattern matches those of the state and surrounding counties.

Secondly, the only reason CCT has not been able to produce better and more results is not because they are not effective or efficient. It is because our officials have not properly planned or looked to the future. I often pose the question, "Assume we did have an industry wanting to be in Elizabethton, where would we put them? We have no sites."

Keep in mind that for an industry to be interested in a site it must have water, sewer, electric, gas, and often fiber optics to their specifications, a 4-lane highway, environmental studies completed, the site appropriately zoned for industrial...the list goes on. Finding and developing these sites could easily take 8-10 years and cost hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. If our local governments and economic development agencies started on such an endeavor today, taxpayers today would not likely begin to see results until students who are in the 5th grade graduate high school. That takes foresight!

We need to realize that starting or bringing another economic development agency into Carter County and Elizabethton isn't going to magically make all of our economic problems go away. It will still take planning, foresight, and financial commitments on the part of our elected officials today so that we can have jobs tomorrow. Those hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars will have to be dedicated to develop land if we choose to be an industrial community regardless of what economic development agency is here.

It's easy to point the blame at one agency or one person, when we're not quite sure whose fault something is, but the reality is that it's all of our fault. When our elected officials ran for office and promised jobs we failed to hold them accountable. We made them fearful that spending too much on economic development would result in us not re-electing them. We encouraged a lack of foresight. So what can we do to encourage investment moving forward? How can we encourage appropriate future economic development? Let's talk about it!

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go!

This article was originally written by Dr. Jim Segedy, AICP, Professor Emeritus at Ball State University and a long-time chair of the Small Town and Rural Planning Division of the American Planning Association, for the Winter 2005 newsletter and is not a part of my 'Let's Talk' column. When I first read it I immediately thought of Elizabethton and my hometown of Montpelier, Ohio. How true this article still is today. –ed.

I was at a conference not that long ago and walking around the downtown near the hotel as I often do. Very pleasant. The person I was walking with and I were talking about how the people of this fair town had done such a great job of making the downtown very pedestrian-friendly.

All the ingredients were there: Nice wide sidewalks with brick pavers, street trees, festive banners promoting the downtown, decorative, human-scale lampposts, restored buildings with nice displays, even appropriate traffic-calming devices. I was taking pictures like crazy. But something was missing. It was pedestrian-friendly but there were no pedestrians. Curious, I mused to my friend. Then we looked closer. It was after 5:00. Nothing was open. OK, it’s downtown, office workers want to get home to have dinner and take a nap watching “Wheel of Fortune.”

We went out the next morning. A bright day, the sun was shining, a crisp fall morning. Curious, I mused to my friend – yet again. Still no pedestrians.

‘What could the matter be,’ we asked each other. Ah-ha! It looked great, but there’s nothing there. There are no pedestrian destinations. Nothing to bring out the pedestrians. Sorry, I can’t get excited about heading out to pay a visit to the insurance agent or the something or other office of this and that. What have we done to ourselves? We spend all the time and effort to fix up our downtowns, making them attractive to visit, but there’s nothing there to visit. Downtown revitalization is not just about putting on a pretty face. There has to be a reason to be there. The best design in the world doesn’t mean anything if there’s no one around to appreciate it and there will be NO one if there’s nothing to do.

I thought we had learned some lessons from trying to turn “Main Street” into “The Mall.” Same thing. Even “The Mall” and the big boxes at the edge of town have recognized this.

Look at the new trend in retail – the “Lifestyle Center.” They look like little downtowns. So far so good. They even violate all the rules – you have to walk outside in all the weather (just like downtown and the old Victor Gruen malls) – but people do it. Why – because there’s something to do when you get there. I was talking with one of the designers of one of the earliest “Lifestyle Centers:” Easton Town Center, northeast of Columbus, Ohio. They had all of these public amenities – fountains, reflecting pools, etc. To the attorneys – an attractive nuisance, and a lawsuit waiting to happen. “Don’t let people go near them,” they said. The people said, “What cool places to play and just lollygag.” The people won. You go there now and kids playing in the fountain are part of the excitement. The reflecting pool encourages model boats and general frolicking. People come. People enjoy each other. People spend money. This new version of downtown works.

As we look at our downtowns and wonder why there’s no life in them, maybe we need to look a little deeper. Are we all dressed up with no place to go?

Spring is Coming...and so are Property Maintenance Issues

With each day, the air gets a little warmer, the sun shines a little brighter, and before you know it the grass will be a foot tall and the paint on the siding will be peeling. Sorry to ruin that perfect picture, but in the Planning and Economic Development Department, that's what we think about when spring arrives.

Property maintenance complaints kick into high gear during late spring and into summer. Often times it's people leaving junk or trash lying around their house. Sometime it's a feud between two neighbors trying to get the other in trouble. Nevertheless, property maintenance is one of the biggest problems we have when it comes to housing in Elizabethton. The property maintenance problems help contribute to the lack of quality housing and low home values that data sources suggest we have here. Additionally, unmaintained properties contribute to blight and can make entire neighborhoods undesirable.

Each year since I've been in my current position we have tried to set up our game when it comes to property maintenance. One year we adopted new, modern, nationally accepted standards for property maintenance – the International Property Maintenance Code. The year after that we developed and implemented the neighborhood sweep program where four staff members spend an entire morning canvassing a neighborhood going door-to-door identifying property maintenance issues and notifying the property owner. The neighborhood is then reviewed again for compliance. This programs starts in April each year and end in October. We have seen a lot of success with this program!

Our improvement this year is our online reporting system. Implementing this program will allow citizens and residents to report our most common property maintenance violations online. Citizens can also submit a picture of the property so that the Code Officer can get a better idea of the violation. Once the violation has been submitted, our officer can review and visit the site to determine whether there is a property maintenance violation.

The goal of this program is to make reporting these properties more accessible and not to require a visit to city hall to report a violation. Additionally, it will give our staff more eyes on the street so that we can find violations early before they become worse.

What are your thoughts on the role of property maintenance in our community? What else do you think we can or should be doing to combat property maintenance violations? Let's talk about it!

Visit http://www.elizabethton.org/departments/report_a_violation.php to report a violation.

Unique Community Assets Can Translate Into Tourism

There has been a lot of discussion lately about expanding the recreational opportunities in Elizabethton and Carter County. The Carter County Parks and Recreation Board has discussed creating an extension to the Tweetsie Trail, both City and County boards have discussed opportunities for multi-sports facilities, and planners from across Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia have been discussing the development of a master plan for the Overmountain Victory Trail.

While the goal of Parks and Recreation Departments and Boards is to provide open-space and recreational opportunities for their citizens and not primarily tourism, many times we see others from outside the area interested in the recreational opportunities that are available in a nearby community and, therefore, travel to see and partake of these assets. The activities, programs, and facilities that the parks and recreation boards are discussing are no different. These are all very exciting opportunities!

The Overmountain Victory Trail is especially of interest because of it’s significance and the support it can draw. As many of you know, the Overmountain Victory Trail is the route that the Overmountain men took from Washington County, Virginia to Sycamore Shoals, and then on to King’s Mountain. Here they successfully defeated the British in a battle. This battle is commonly noted as the turning point in the Revolutionary War in favor of the Patriots.

This trail also brings with it National recognition, since it is a federally recognized park. With that comes additional funding from the Federal Government and national marketing helping to put Elizabethton on the map again and giving us a unique federal park through our county.

Developing and implementing these activities help build Elizabethton and Carter County’s asset base. It gives us something to be proud of, gives us something unique, and gives others the desire to discover more about Elizabethton and Carter County.

Uniqueness is the cornerstone of Tourism. People travel to see and experience something different, something they cannot find more locally near their home. As we continue to work on and develop unique assets in our cities and in our county, we will find more and more people wanting to discover and experience what we have to offer. What else can we be doing to welcome them and show them more of what makes us unique? Let’s talk about it!

Local Planning Greases the Gears of the Free Market

The political season has begun in American and while I don’t typically dip into politics too much in my column, I do want to touch on one point as it is applied to our city -- the economy. This year is a particularly interesting presidential election year, because we have almost complete opposite approaches to the economy. On the one hand we have Senator Bernie Sanders proposing more socialist or communal economic policies and Senator Ted Cruz as well as Mr. Donald Trump proposing more laissez-faire or free-market economic policies. While I’m not going to take sides, I do want to talk about how such an approach works on the local level and the role that planning plays in economic policy.

In a city setting many people feel that a free-market approach to development is the best approach and this may be true. But as we’ve seen in Elizabethton, a free-market approach can lead to problems down the road. West Elk Avenue is an example of this. Free-market development was allowed to happen along this corridor. As someone wanted to develop a piece of property, it was split off and developed with little thought to larger impacts and long-term implications. Today, we deal with traffic problems that will only grow worse, because the free-market drove the development in this area and resulted in no frontage roads, multiple driveway cuts and smaller lot sizes. This creates slower traffic flow, more traffic lights, and, thus, more congestion along the corridor.

Another example is the downfall of the Rayon Company. The free-market demanded less rayon, the industry began to suffer and the Elizabethton economy began to fall as well. The free-market did not bring new industries or companies to Elizabethton and, in the end, we ended up with stagnant or falling household incomes.

Don’t take me wrong, I am far from a socialist, communist, or other economic structure you can think of...a laissez-faire or free-market economy is, in my opinion, the only player on the field because it’s been proven to work! But I also believe in appropriate planning on a local level. In my opinion appropriate planning greases the gears of a free-market economy and makes it work better and more efficient. If appropriate planning had been done along West Elk Avenue, there would likely be more lots for the free-market to development, less congestion allowing higher traffic counts, and making it more attractive for new business. If appropriate economic planning had been done when the Rayon plants started layoffs, new industries might have moved to Elizabethton to help fill the unemployment gap, the skills of the former employees may have been retained in Elizabethton, and household incomes may have continued to increase.

A free-market economy works, but on a local level it is important for the government to keep their thumb on the pulse and, when necessary, step in and grease the gears of the free-market by planning for the future of our city. Let’s talk about it!