CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – When the city first allowed the use of electronic message centers back in the 1990s and early 2000s, no rules were in place. Now, after months of discussion, the City Council is again considering tweaks to the electronic message center regulations to make them consistent across the city.

Ordinance background

Director of the Regional Planning Commission Jeffrey Tyndall previously told the City Council that this has been a long time coming, seeing that this process began in December 2023. However, it had to be paused while the RPC applied the Fort Campbell Boulevard and Tiny Town Road overlay districts, because it would also apply to these areas.

In December 2023, the Common Design Review Board was asked to approve an LED digital reader board exemption on Madison Street. At the time, Madison Street didn’t allow any LED signs that weren’t government owned, outside those grandfathered into the district.

| PREVIOUSLY: Changes could be coming for electronic message center rules

“The board denied it but said they’d like to look into whether or not it was permissible to allow schools and churches to have them. Shortly thereafter, the businesses also took (exception) to some signs that were put up recently by non-private entities,” Tyndall previously said.

This led to the City Council approving a proposal that allows Madison Street to have some sort of electronic message centers to a limited size.

Electronic message centers, their capabilities

When looking into the proposal to allow some sort of signage on Madison Street, Tyndall said RPC staff determined they could allow it, but there aren’t rules citywide on how to use these signs.

“They’re becoming very affordable; they’re becoming the way a lot of businesses choose to go,” Tyndall said at the council’s Dec. 1 executive session meeting. When the Planning Commission began working on this, they split the question. While half of the proposal passed, the other relating to citywide sign regulations was deferred, as they met with business owners leading up to this week.

“We’ve had many meetings with sign companies to understand what these signs are capable of,” Tyndall said. “We’ve also had meetings with business owners, and we had a workshop two weeks ago where we actually got to sit and talk about this in a formal setting without being under the three-minute limit. I feel like we got somewhere, and it’s somewhere in-between I think.”

Tyndall said this ordinance directly relates to signs and transition images, static images, as well as other regulations concerning the electronic message center signs.

Construction of new signage, how signage should be used

He said items in the ordinance deal with the construction of new electronic message center signage and how big they can be, the distance allowed from residential neighborhoods and minimum height.

They also deal with how the signs should be used. “That was the largest bone of contention from anyone that we met with,” Tyndall said. “This is where we settled with multiple meeting and multiple workshops and direction from the Planning Commission. “This part of the ordinance … won’t go into effect until April 1, 2026, so the signs can operate as they are right now, and it gives time for the sign owners to (re)program them.”

Tyndall also laid out these additional rules for how the signs will have to be used:

  • Transition time between images shall be limited to no more than 5 seconds.
  • After a transition, the image, or the next image, must remain static for 5 or more seconds.
  • After that static image, a transition may begin again.

Tyndall said that during the workshop, they found out some older signs are less than 2 feet tall. “We have exempted the signs that are less than 2 feet tall, as long as they were legally permitted prior to Sept. 4 of this year, which was when this was first considered,” he said.

‘Education is key’ in sign regulation

Tyndall said they want to create a pamphlet before April 1 of next year for a better understanding of the rules and regulations.

City Mayor Joe Pitts asked Director of Building and Codes Justin Crosby to discuss any problems this may present to his department.

Crosby said that just like everything else, education is key. “This is a huge set of tools for our toolbox; we all drive around town, we see what unregulated signs look like,” he said. “We all know and can agree that we do not need any more unregulated signs. I think this stuff is really good, and I want to compliment the Planning Commission.

“We sat down with sign companies, and sign manufacturers to go through and make sure that any rules that we were going to push forth to you guys, we weren’t going to build something in our rules and regulations that couldn’t be achieved by the manufacturers and the sign companies, and something that wasn’t going to be user friendly to their end user.”

Crosby said this is something that the City of Clarksville has needed for some time, and if someone were to be in violation of the regulations, it would simply be a standard code violation.

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