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Mike P1att/Fuddruckers, Case No. 2333 Page 2 We met with the applicant, Mr. Platt, at his site two weeks after the September Planning commission meeting to analyze in greater detail the visibility of a pylon sign from the surrounding roadways. He had erected, on a crane, a mockup of a sign frame in his preferred location, which could be raised or lowered. We viewed this mockup from the northbound lanes of Snelling Avenue south of County Road C, and had it raised and lowered to determine at what height it could and could not be seen. We found that the bottom of it needed to be 32' off the ground in order to be seen over the drive-in canopy of the Investors building. A 6' high sign face, therefore, would need to be 38' off the ground in order to be seen. 2. DEVELOPMENT ANALYSIS A pylon sign in the B-IB District is allowed to be 25' high, 70 square feet in area and set back 30' in the front and 10' in the side yard. The existing sign meets all these standards. The previous request in September was for a variance to the height, size, and front setback. The request before you now is for a variance to the height only. The current proposal meets the size and setback requirements, and would be 38' high. The applicant is proposing to use the existing 6' x 12' sign face and simply place it on a taller post in a new location. 3. CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION The request before you is consistent with the recommendation we made at the September meeting. Since then, we have met with the applicant and he has revised his request to involve a height variance only. We have also contacted the surrounding property owners and discussed the possibility of common signage, but do not believe this is a workable solution. We believe the owners of Fuddruckers were relying in good faith on a set of conditions at their site when the existing building and sign were constructed. Those conditions included the expectation that public right-of-way would remain vacant and they relied on the resulting visibility to locate their business and sign where they did. Due to actions over which they had no control, private buildings were built blocking the visibility. We believe this constitutes a hardship and a practical difficulty for the location of their pylon sign. The hardship can be overcome by a variance to the height requirement for the sign. We therefore recommend approval of a variance to the height of the pylon sign, but only the minimum necessary to allow it to be visible over the adjacent buildings. We have determined this to be 38' for the sign they propose.