CC 02-07-2023 Item No. 16 Consider appeal of the Planning Commission decision to deny Sign Exception Written CommunicationsCC 02-07-2023
Item No. 16
Consider an appeal of
the Planning
Commission's decision to
deny Sign Exception
Written Communications
From:Rhoda Fry
To:City Clerk; City Council
Cc:City of Cupertino Planning Commission
Subject:#16 No to illuminated signs facing freeway
Date:Tuesday, February 7, 2023 3:55:27 PM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you
recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Dear Cupertino City Council,
#16 No to illuminated signs facing freeway
Our Planning Commission correctly rejected an application for illuminated signage facing highway
280.
I hope that you had the opportunity to listen to the Planning Commission and to read the letters
from the community, including Audobon Society, Greenfoothills, and my own.
First and foremost, freeway-facing signage within 660 feet of the freeway needs to be decided by
the Planning Commission. They said no. And so should you.
I don’t think that Cupertino wants to be known as the city that defiled our freeway, which is eligible
to be a scenic highway.
This issue drew so much interest that Planning Commissioners received phone calls from KQED (it is
mentioned on the video).
The proposed illuminated signage is within 46 feet of our freeway property.
To give you an idea of their proposed mass, each sign is a few feet shy of a single car garage.
I do not know whether signage would make this section of freeway to become ineligible for scenic
highway status, but don’t we want Cupertino to be as beautiful as possible?
If someone wants to find public storage, the freeway sign won’t help them find it anyway – the
internet will tell them where to go.
Did you know that the building already has 648 square feet of signage?
A building permit, BLD-2021-1294, was taken out on 7/6/2021 for this work and it has already been
finaled.
Separately, as of today, the building permits for the new building (2019-130 and 2019-1335) have
yet to be finaled (the planning commission had been told it was an existing building – I think it was a
bit of a stretch). Unlike the Planning Commission meeting, I don’t see the plan set in your packet.
In the unlikely event that you do allow one freeway facing sign (another sign will surely be visible
from the freeway as well), please do not allow it to be illuminated.
There is no reason for illumination aside from being a distraction to motorists, which can be a hazard
(I don’t drive on 101 at night for this reason).
The City has recently passed a dark-sky ordinance. Dark skies are important to residents. Would
illuminated signage violate the ordinance? The answer is likely no. But are dark skies important to
us? Yes? Are you able to reject this request for signage? Absolutely yes.
They propose to leave the lights on until 11pm even though the office closes at 7pm (and access
closes at 9pm). But access does not come from the freeway sign.
The only thing that the freeway sign does is advertise. We don’t want billboards on our freeway – do
we?
I believe that the staff’s report on this issue, which echoes the applicants sentiments, is overly broad.
Scenic highway and dark sky ordinance were listed as incorrect reasons for rejection, as shown
above, this is not the case.
We do care about our highway being scenic and our skies being dark.
Thank you for rejecting this appeal.
Sincerely,
Rhoda Fry