One of Northbrook’s shopping strips is on the way to getting a refit that will start with replacing three outmoded signs with two new ones, but change is difficult in coming.
Two of eight Northbrook Plan Commission members voted June 6 against a recommendation that those signs at the Dunbrook Center be built, saying that they might be dangerous. Susan Elfant and Bryan Schimel said that the old “pole signs” were ugly but they might just be safer, because they don’t block view of traffic. The new “monument” signs would be 10 feet wide and 16 feet high, twice as high as now permitted.
“I believe we need to move away from pole signs, and I believe the signs at Dunbrook need to be improved,” Elfant said. “I’m still concerned about going to two very bulky signs in a C-2 district, and we don’t have those anywhere else except (office districts).”
Bill Shiner, the new owner of the center on Dundee Road, just east of Pfingsten Road, said Northbrook was nearly alone among North Shore suburbs in allowing pole signs, and better-placed, modern looking signs replacing the two current pole signs and a small monument sign are needed to serve his tenants.
Commission member Jeremy Melnick agreed.
“I think just for the sake of the businesses, we do need to upgrade the signs,” he said.
A couple of neighbors spoke at the public hearing, but they didn’t express concern about safety, but about the glare of the back-lit signs, and of the center in general. Commissioners required, pre-construction, a photometric study to ensure the center, with the signs and as it stands now, abides by the village’s lighting code.
Elfant said it might not be enough.
“They’re going to be bright,” she said of the signs. “We approve this, and we start opening this up to all the C-2 districts, and they’re all in residential areas.” She noted that the village plans to rewrite its sign ordinance, adding that after that’s done might be a better time to make the calls on Dundee Road.
“We’re talking what one applicant needs, and using those guidelines to amend our zoning, and that seems … a backwards way of doing it,” she said.
Commission Member Steve Elisco remarked that any new monument sign elsewhere in the commercial district would also have to apply for its own special permit to allow a monument sign more than 8 feet tall.
Schimel said that at 209 feet apart, the signs may cut visibility too much. Shiner said that if the easternmost sign was moved too far east, it would be invisible from the east, blocked by trees, as one of the current signs is. Schimel said in that case, one sign might be enough.
A Northbrook Village Board vote on the matter is expected June 27 or later.
