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Aspen Inn has to redesign sign upgrade over height concerns

The Aspen may have to redesign their planned upgraded signage a bit, however council did approve some of their requests.
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The Aspen has to make some amendments to their plans to upgrade their signs after council wasn’t comfortable with some of the variations being asked for.

The Aspen may have to redesign their planned upgraded signage a bit, however council did approve some of their requests.

The proposed new signage for the property required a variance as it contravened three sections of the town’s signage bylaw, the first being the height of the freestanding sign.

Already granted a previous variance to allow the freestanding sign to be 27.6 feet tall from the bylaw requirement of no more than 23 feet, the Aspen was requesting a further variance to allow a 31.5 foot high back-lit sign.

“We felt uncomfortable with that height as it’s way beyond the bylaw that we currently have in effect,” Mayor Cress Farrow said.

While they declined the additional height and limited the sign square footage to 107 square feet, the brightness of the proposed LED backlight was of particular concern to council.

“We have no way of knowing how bright it will be,” Mark Allen, Director of Development Services told council.

After two defeated motions, council decided to ask the applicant to come back with more information regarding the manner of LED brightness with the backlit sign.

“A lot of debate went into the back light, so what we’ve asked is the proponent comes forward with alternatives,” Farrow said. “Give us a chance to look at it and see if there’s something that can be done to work with the restaurant and to conform with the bylaws that are in place.”

Council decided to have the proponent remove the proposed LED messaging component.  Their current bylaw only allows the time and temperature to be advertised digitally.

“Those are allowed on a sign, but ones that do advertising we don’t allow because it does create the potential for traffic mishaps,” Farrow said.

Council also limited their signage to three on site signs, including a freestanding sign, one fascia sign and a sign head.

Variances given included allowing the fascia sign to be externally illuminated and to keep the existing height for the sign head.

There are challenges, Farrow said, when it comes to maintaining the Alpine Theme, now not only applicable downtown but throughout the highway corridor as well. As businesses along the highway, many of which are governed by corporate policies renovate, they trigger the bylaw that requires the alpine theme, however aren’t always able to qualify.

Council, he said, is doing their best to balance these requests with variances, when appropriate.

“You have large structures that are difficult to conform to the alpine theme so we’ve tried to be fair and flexible in how we deal with that to give people the opportunity to follow the corporate image but by the same token respect that we are trying to change the image of the highway corridor,” Farrow said.