Sign Ordinance Discussed at South Cobb Business Town Hall

About 20 business owners attended the South Cobb Drive Business Town Hall hosted by the mayor and other city officials Tuesday and the meeting’s discussion largely focused on sign ordinances.

“One of the biggest things that we’ve just constantly been working on is our sign ordinance,” said Mayor Max Bacon. “It seems like as long as I’ve been on Council we’re always dealing with the sign ordinance and I know that’s been one of the big bones of contention.”

Several of the business owners in attendance including Jay Wallace, owner of ; Steve Ewing, CEO of ; and Andy Polan, a representative for , said they had experienced difficulty working within the city’s sign ordinance.

Ken Suddreth, the city’s community development director, offered suggestions for working around the ordinance.

“We can amend the ordinance, a variance can be applied for or it can be incorporated into a rezoning,” he said. “If there are other issues associated with the property we can also handle that through rezoning the property and also putting conditions on the property. There are multiple ways to handle something.”

Ewing also suggested that the city form a sign subcommittee to help streamline the process. Wallace and Floyd Sims, the owner of several McDonald’s franchises, volunteered to serve on the committee. Bacon said the committee would review the current ordinance and offer suggestions for making it more effective.

“I don’t want to regulate businesses out of business,” he said. “We’ve got to meet in the middle and have some kind of compromise. I don’t want to be cumbersome. I don’t want to be bureaucratic.”

Also discussed at the meeting were the economic opportunity zone and the city’s new tiered system of economic incentives.

Approved in 2011, that gives business owners inside the zone a state income tax credit if they hire two full-time employees, said Andrea Hall, economic development.

making them more attainable to small businesses. The old eligibility thresholds required that businesses provide at least 10 new jobs with an estimated annual revenue impact of $250,000. The new incentives are based on a tiered system that allows companies to provide less of a direct economic impact in exchange for creating more jobs.

Hall went on to say that anyone with questions about the economic incentives or the opportunity zone can call the community development department. Ewing suggested the department ‘take it a step further’ by identifying the businesses that qualify for the incentives and notifying them directly. 

Elected officials in attendance at the meeting included Melleny Pritchett, City Council Ward 1; Andrea Blustein, City Council Ward 2; Charles "Corkey" Welch, City Council Ward 4; Susan Wilkinson, City Council Ward 5; Ron Fennel, City Council Ward 7. Former Ward 5 Councilman and South Cobb Drive business owner Jimmy Smith also attended. 

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