After receiving a request from a business owner seeking permission to keep a sign on top of her new exercise studio, which violates a city sign ordinance that prohibits signs extending above the roofline, the Perryville Board of Aldermen has found another way for her to retain the sign — by requesting a variance from the board of adjustments.
Alanna Hellman, owner of Overtime Nutrition and Fitness (OTNF) located at 12 N. French Lane, presented her request at the board’s May 6 meeting. She explained that her business is hard to find because it sits behind an empty building at the corner of St. Joseph Street and Highway 51, which previously housed an urgent care facility.
Since she assumed she could install a new sign in the existing frame on the top of the building, her customer base has grown. When Hellman discovered that the sign on her building did not comply with the city sign ordinance, she appealed to the aldermen who, while sympathetic to her predicament, couldn’t allow the sign to stay.
At one point in the discussion, Mayor Larry Riney emphasized that residents needed to develop the habit of obtaining a sign permit from the city before displaying anything on their property that does not follow city guidelines.
At the meeting, she was joined by the individual who had installed the new sign. While acknowledging that he hadn’t secured a permit from the city for the sign, he assured the aldermen that it was sturdy and properly grounded to remain in place.
He believed it might be possible to “grandfather” the sign in, since one had been installed on the building for years. The aldermen, Mayor Riney, and City Administrator Brent Buerck asserted that the sign had been grandfathered in since at least 2006, but that it couldn’t maintain that status once the original sign had been removed.
During the board’s meeting on May 20, the subject was discussed again, even though Ms. Hellman was not present, because the board asked the city to do a legal assessment of the situation and make a decision on the matter.
“At this point, there may be a path for a variance for those folks, but it’ll be up to the board of adjustments for that,” Buerck said. “If they approve it, that’s the final decision. By statute, those decisions are not reviewed by the board of aldermen.”
