A.
The purpose of this article is to establish standards for the fabrication, erection, and use of signs, and to regulate the location, type, size, and height of signage for all properties within the City of Monona. The adoption of this article reflects the formal finding of fact by the City of Monona Plan Commission and Common Council that regulation of signage advances the following compelling governmental interests:
(1)
Reduce signage that the City has determined to be a cause of unsafe traffic and visibility conditions for pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers, and passengers.
(2)
Protect pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers, and passengers from injury caused by the faulty and uncontrolled construction and use of signs within the City.
(3)
Protect pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers, and passengers from injury caused by distractions, obstructions, and hazards created by certain signs or by cluttered, distracting, or illegible signage.
(4)
Promote the public welfare, health, and safety of all persons using public thoroughfares and rights-of-way within the City of Monona in relation to the signage displayed thereon, or overhanging, or projecting into such public spaces.
(5)
Preserve the value of private property by assuring the compatibility of signs with surrounding land uses.
(6)
Assure that public benefits derived from expenditures of public funds for the improvement and beautification of public streets and other public structures and spaces are protected by exercising reasonable controls over character and design of signage.
(7)
Advance the aesthetic goals of the City throughout the community and ensure the effectiveness and flexibility in the design, creativity, or use of signage without creating a detriment to the general public.
B.
Furthermore, this article leaves ample and adequate alternative channels of commercial speech communication for the messages portrayed on advertising signs - namely, distributed print media, broadcast media, and point-of-purchase display - and is narrowly defined so as to limit said prohibition to commercial speech on exterior signage and signage intended to be viewed from beyond the boundaries of a site.


