Bethany wrangles with future of special-events signage
Special events in Bethany Beach could get some more prominent advertising, if the town council follows through with a proposal to move the Town’s primary advertising venue from the lifeguard station at the end of Garfield Parkway to one or more locations at the intersection of Routes 1 and 26.
The council discussed the ideas at their workshop on Nov. 14, extending from the topic of how to handle deterioration of the plywood underlayment of the cedar shake siding on the guard house due to its regular use as an advertising banner display location.
Town Manager Cliff Graviet explained to council members on Monday that the initial idea had been to shift from the variety of shackles and eye-bolts that have been used to display myriad sizes of banners over the years – causing repeated and varied damage to the building – to a display system that would standardize the banner sizes and placement and ensure that the devices holding them in place could be permanently installed and not cause continued damage.
“We have traditionally only said yes to placement of banners on the guard house, but that has become its own problem,” he noted. “We will soon have to replace a significant portion of the western wall of the guard house.”
Graviet said he and Public Works Director Brett Warner were actually hoping to move away entirely from use of the guard house for signage, instead considering the two new 30-foot-tall light poles going in on the medians at Garfield Parkway and its intersections with Atlantic and Pennsylvania Avenues as possible places to display banners in the future. The poles would accommodate 30-by-80-inch banners.
“That’s a very little banner,” commented Councilwoman Carol Olmstead, who has used the guard house in the past to display banners for the Seaside Craft Show held each June. “Too small.”
Graviet said he felt the locations would work for event organizers.
“They get the message out. They get you coming and going. And it might solve the problem.”
But Graviet also noted interest expressed by event organizers in using other locations within the town.
“In the last year, a couple of things have gotten away from my office and occurred,” he acknowledged, particularly referencing recent use of the Route 1 median to advertise pancake breakfasts held by the Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Company and signage for the recent Wags, Witches & Warlocks event organized by the Bethany Beach Business Forum, which had signage erected by Warner in front of the town’s landmark totem-pole-style sculpture.
The former location is not one approved by the Delaware Department of Transportation, which controls Route 1 and its medians, and the latter was not formally approved by the council or Graviet, though it was for a town-approved event and was erected by town staff. Council members had a mixed reaction to the totem-pole location for signage, with Vice-Mayor Jack Gordon saying he didn’t feel it fit with the town’s image.
“We have spent so much time beautifying this town,” he said, expressing disappointment with the location in front of the totem pole, the 4-by-4-inch poles used to erect the banner and a proliferation of advertising in general. “I think we have to cut down on what we see or have seen,” he added, noting that he liked the idea of the small vertical banners on the light poles.
Councilman Lew Killmer disagreed.
“I think the banners were of high quality and well done,” he said. “People thought it was a first-class banner, and you need high visibility.”
Killmer noted that the town already limits how long the advertising banners can be up – up to seven days on initial approval by the town manager and up to 21 days with additional permission.
“On the guard house, we’re missing all kinds of people traveling up and down Route 1,” he added. “We have worked with the business community, trying to convince the business community that there is life after September, scheduling events that last a day or two to encourage business.”
Killmer said he not only wanted to offer the advertising space for such special events but was also proposing that the council consider installing a large electronic message board on the guard house that could display information on all upcoming events, as well as information such as riptide warnings.
“That will preserve the structure, and it’s something we can monitor and control ourselves,” he pointed out. “I would like us not to prohibit these banners being up for a short time or burying them in an area that gets very little contact from the community.”
Councilman Jerry Dorfman said he, like Gordon, was concerned about how signage is impacting the look of the town.
“The last few years, we’ve had a lot of signs that have erupted in this town,” he said, pointing to the Town’s own signage about prohibitions on smoking and dogs on the beach, bicycle hours on the boardwalk and most recently the sandwichboard-type signs the Town used to inform motorists about the new paid parking system.
“I don’t think all of us were happy with what the fire company did,” he added. “It becomes honkytonk after a while.”
Olmstead joined Killmer in favoring more advantageous signage locations for event organizers.
“Putting banners down here [on Garfield Parkway] doesn’t do any good,” she said. “We want to capture people who don’t come into our town and bring them into town.”
Speaking of the craft show, she said, “We decided to have a banner downtown to remind people, but also to have one on Route 1 to make people driving by aware.” Adding that she had no issue with doing away with the guard house as an advertising location and thus preserving it, Olmstead said she wanted to see the council offer more prominent locations. “If we’re going to allow it, let’s let them be where people can see them.”
Councilwoman Margaret Young said she, too, wouldn’t object to eliminating the guard house for advertising, and she also said she’d prefer to offer locations that had more visibility to the highway. “If they’re special events, they’re only going to be here a few days. People are not going to see things on Atlantic or Pennsylvania.”
McClenny said he had really taken to the location front of the totem pole, as used for Wags, Witches & Warlocks.
“That’s a spectacular location in front of the totem pole to let people know about our events,” he said. “With the guard house, it’s not only messed up the guard house but doesn’t let people know about the events.”
Pointing out that the craft show had previously utilized the northwest corner of the Route 1/26 intersection for advertising, he said he thought that location posed problems for travelers from different directions being able to see the advertising.
“If we’re going to have them, [in front of the totem pole] is the place to have it,” he said. “I don’t think the banners took anything away,” he said of the appearance of the town’s gardens. “I’m in favor of putting the banner where traffic will see it and enticing as many people into town for these events as we can.”
Graviet said he didn’t believe the Town should formally move to utilize the Route 1 medians for advertising, “because it is not what DelDOT wants.” But Olmstead and McClenny proposed at least asking State officials if that would be permitted – perhaps with a set of removable poles that could be used for rotating signage. A similar setup would be considered for in front of the totem pole and at that northwest corner of the intersection.
Along with location, the other aspect of the policy the council is considering is who would be permitted to advertise in these designated locations.
“We have limited it in the past to Town events,” McClenny noted, saying he would favor increasing that to townwide events, such as Wags, Witches & Warlocks. “They did a great job.”
Graviet said he wanted the council to consider, though, that opening things up could potentially cause the town to become “constantly awash in banners.”
The council members expressed support for allowing advertising for events organized by and for the Town, the South Coastal Library, the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce, the Bethany Beach Business Forum, the Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Company and the Bethany Beach Farmers’ Market.
“Will there be banners up there 365 days a year?” inquired Gordon. Killmer said there wouldn’t be.
“I don’t think it’s junky looking,” Olmstead put in. “It makes the town look like it’s alive.”
“I think we will be surprised how the banners will multiply,” added McClenny. “We’re going to have times when we have more banners than space. With five groups approved, three are going to want a banner up at the same time.”
Olmstead suggested that the farmers’ market banner, which is up for most of the summer, be relocated to the actual location of the market, in the PNC Bank parking lot that the town leases for after-hours parking and the farmers’ market.
Graviet said he thought that might pose a problem, but McClenny noted that the Town hadn’t enforced the regulation prohibiting the farmers’ market signage PNC erected on their own building and could likely work out an agreement in which the town would put up display poles in the parking lot and PNC could display the banner there instead.
“It would look better than where it is now,” he said.
Killmer said he was also concerned about the aesthetic of a situation in which the town approved multiple locations for banners but there weren’t enough to fill up each location, due to the cost to event organizers of producing them. Graviet said the Town could have a set of decorative banners made to put in any location not being used by advertisers at a given point in time.
He also returned the council to discussion of electronic signage, which he noted had come up as a result of the electronic signage space on the parking paystations. The council already has moved to approve electronic signage on its own behalf, due to that option being included with the paystations. But the council did not show much support on Monday for a larger electronic display.
The time limit on advertising signage for special events is on the council’s agenda for Friday, Nov. 18, at 2 p.m. The council is likely to further consider a formalized policy on the advertising locations and permitted organizations at a future meeting.
Comp plan update moves forward
Also on Nov. 14, the council considered recommended changes to its proposed five-year update of the town Comprehensive Plan.
“They seem to confuse us with Bear or something,” Killmer said of the comments received from state agencies on the approved draft. “I don’t know how we can put in affordable housing. … The cost of land is prohibitive.”
“The State has some boilerplate verbiage in all these reviews,” Graviet pointed out. “We are 1 square mile. We are built out. So much of this is not applicable to us.”
Killmer also pointed to the recommended inclusion of brownfields pollution sites and the Indian River Power Plant as areas in which the Town had little, if anything, to say but was nonetheless asked to elaborate by state officials. He noted a strong thread of influence of the concerns of DNREC officials, including suggesting the town require a 100-foot upland buffer from waterways. “Too late,” commented McClenny of the built-out town.
Council members also found a suggestion for requiring green-tech stormwater management instead of stormwater management ponds to be impractical for a beach town and its high water table. They scoffed at a suggestion of zoning for future agricultural business. “We’re going to return Turtle Walk to a farm,” McClenny joked.
Graviet said he felt a handful of the suggestions ought to be addressed by the Town’s engineering consultant, to ensure that the Town’s response was backed up by an expert. He noted that a suggestion to have neighboring towns review the comp plan was likely targeted toward towns that are “aggressively annexing.”
Olmstead pointed out that much of the process had come out of former Gov. Ruth Ann Minner’s Livable Delaware initiative. “It was intended to oversee growth areas,” she noted.
“We don’t have any growth areas,” Killmer replied.
With the responses from the Town and expert opinions from the engineer included, the comp plan will go back to the Planning Commission for its approval before being submitted to the State for final approval and council adoption.
