Planning Commission works toward sign ordinance revision

HIAWASSEE, Ga. – Towns County Planning Commission met on Tuesday, July 31, to discuss revisions to the existing sign ordinance. A 90-day moratorium, which temporarily suspended the permit process, took effect on July 17, due to a recent upsurge of applications for off-site advertising signs and billboards.

“Our worry is that we don’t want to pollute the county with signs,” Towns County Commissioner Cliff Bradshaw explained , “At the same time, we wants businesses to be able to advertise. We naturally want businesses to be successful and prosperous, but at the same time, we want to protect the beauty of the county. The key things we’re discussing are the sizes of signs verses the road sizes. For example, on Highway 76, you might do a 300 foot sign, but then on a smaller road such as Highway 288, it might be a 75 foot sign. The sizes are not in stone, and haven’t been approved yet. One of the things we’re debating is spreading the signs out, how much distance should there be between signs. I think that Union County signs are set at a mile apart. Towns County is a lot smaller than theirs, and we talked about a mile apart in the meeting, but we think that may be a little much, and at the next meeting we will figure it all out.”

“We also talked about the construction of signs, ” Bradshaw  continued, “When you head into Clay County on Highway 17/69, you see a lot of doubles. We’re not excited about doing doubles. We also don’t like to see telephone poles holding them up. We’re looking at maybe doing a uni-pole on the larger roads, and maybe metal poles on the smaller roads. All of this is talk right now, but at an upcoming meeting, we will vote and get it all done.”

The planning committee is expected to meet again in August to continue revamping the regulations.