There are several businesses located in the city that display their products for sale outside of an enclosed building and in that regard some of the displays are rather unsightly and constitute visual blight. In order to address the unrestricted clutter of merchandise the staff has developed an ordinance. The intent of the ordinance is to provide for the appropriate location and design of outdoor sales, display and storage areas and to mitigate any adverse impacts that such uses may have on adjacent properties, public rights-of-way and the community as a whole. Specifically, the ordinance establishes standards for outdoor display areas. The most notable of which include:
- The outdoor display area is limited to an area that is no greater than 15% of the total floor area of the business that comprises the principal use of the building
- The outdoor display area shall extend no more than 1/3 of the length of the façade of the building along which the display is located and no more than five feet in depth.
- No outdoor display area merchandise shall be placed in a designated fire lane, emergency exit, loading/unloading area or public rights-of-way.
- The outdoor display area shall not utilize any required open space, parking spaces, public sidewalks, landscape areas or buffers.
- No business shall have more than two outdoor display areas
- No appliances including but not limited to ice boxes, refrigerators, deep freeze lockers, clothes washers, clothes dryers, microwaves or televisions shall be located within an outdoor display area.
Incidentally the ordinance also provides for an exemption and permits the outdoor display of motor vehicles, golf carts, vessels and large construction equipment by a business principally engaged in the sales or rental thereof and the outdoor display of plants and trees by a business principally engaged in and operating as a plant nursery.
The Land Development Review Board reviewed this matter at their meeting on November 19, 2020 and voted unanimously in favor of recommending to the City Council in favor of approval of the ordinance.
Based on the discussion that took place at your meeting on December 1, 2020, the City Attorney has made the following changes to the ordinance:
1. Added temporary outdoor display area - allows for a 72-hour permit two times a year.
2. Removed from exemptions the height of stored pieces of construction.