The Design Review Commission meeting for Wednesday, July 1st is in session.

If there are any members of the public present who would like to speak, please fill out a speaker's card and give it to the Commission secretary.

Please state your name and address and who you represent when you come up to the microphone, and please use the microphone.

Thank you.

Are there any items of consideration that the um commissioners want to add or bring up?

Prior to that.

Okay.

And um call.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Newsom appears to be running late, I believe.

Uh Commissioner Pros?

Commissioner Case here.

Vice Chair Riley.

Here, Chair Basting.

Yes.

Thank you.

We have a quorum.

Okay.

So are there any items on the consent calendar?

Nothing on the consent calendar today.

All right, thank you.

Do we have any public communications that are not on the agenda this evening?

Okay, seeing none.

Do we have any ex parte communications that we need to disclose?

Okay.

Then let's begin the public hearing study session.

Good evening, Chair and members of the design review commission.

Is this on?

Can't hear it on my end.

All right.

Curtis Sawyer, uh, associate planner.

Tonight, we're gonna get into something a little bit different, something exciting.

Um it's not just your typical residential or commercial designer view subject up for discussion and deliberation tonight.

Tonight we get the expand our horizons and talk signage exciting stuff.

Um staff have been working diligently um to craft and revise our sign ordinance that protects community charm and character, bell uh brings balance, encourages creativity, and even introduces introduces technology.

Uh, you and the public may be wondering um why now?

Why are we here this evening?

Uh, to answer that.

It's really been quite some time since we've had the opportunity to provide a comprehensive um overhaul and update to our sign ordinance.

Um, jumping in, uh, the product before you this evening um is our most recent version of the draft sign ordinance.

Our goal tonight is to present it before you obtain your comments and feedback, and ultimately take um your feedback and feedback from our working group, um, stakeholders and members of the community um and ultimately go before the Planning commission for further consideration, and then ultimately adoption before the council.

Um with that, I would like to introduce our consultants, Michael Gibbons and Nikki Zenchetta with Mentir Harnish.

Um they're here to review the draft with you, go over our presentation.

With that, we also have a uh about eight questions lined up specifically.

Um so with that, I'd like to introduce the consultant team and come on up, guys.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Nikki Zanchetta.

I'm a social associate planner with Mentir Harnish, and with me is Michael Gibbons.

He's the project manager through this project.

And so as Curtis said, we're tonight, we want to go through the sign ordinance that we've been working on over the past several months, and just an overview of what we're going to be talking about tonight.

We want to just go over a background of where the project's been, where we are now, how we got to this evening, and that includes what we've done for community outreach, and then also going over the actual changes that we've made to the sign ordinance and then going through any additional questions and clarification that we want to get from commission before moving forward with another draft.

And at the end of the presentation, we'll just go over the next steps and what we can expect for the rest of the process.

So just a quick overview of the project.

So the overall purpose of this project, as Curtis was also mentioning, so we are really looking to just modernize the sign ordinance, bring it into current best practices in the industry, and just really meeting Walnut Creek's business needs and creating more flexibility and creativity in the sign ordinance.

And the last time that the code was the sign ordinance was fully overhauled and updated was back in 1992.

Since then there's been a few minor updates, but this is again our chance to really get into it and make any significant changes that the city would like to see and bringing it into kind of a modern contemporary version of the sign ordinance.

So the goals are to one clarify the intent of the ordinance and really what the city's role is in ensuring that signs are meeting the city's expectations, are reducing clutter and making sure to ensure the public health and safety.

And we also want to incorporate as part of the goals just ways to make the sign ordinance more flexible while meeting business needs and still maintaining the character of Walnut Creek.

So again, our kind of main intent of this is to really create flexibility and recognize that signs are an important part of the business community, and also recognizing that the city is the primary has the primary responsibility of really ensuring that the signs aren't impeding on any of the neighborhood character, any of the safety, and reducing just the overall aesthetic and visual visual clutter that signs can have the uh can have an impact on for the community.