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The Pleasanton City Council had a lengthy discussion last Tuesday about the signage changes to a former Shell gas station after it rebranded to Gulf where several councilmembers voiced their concerns about the overall aesthetic of the new signs and about the process for how those changes were installed prior to the council meeting.
At the end of the April 15 meeting, the council unanimously agreed to postpone the topic until its May 6 meeting so that staff could bring back modifications to the design of the signage and a timeline to go over why the applicant for the gas station was able to previously carry out those changes prior to a council discussion.
“We can’t ask the applicant, right now, to design it differently,” Mayor Jack Balch said during the meeting. “We’re asking for time, for clarification on information.”
According to city senior planner Eric Luchini, businesses in Pleasanton have to follow a process called the sign design review, which is required for sites without an approved master sign program.
That process eventually made its way to the city’s zoning administrator who reviewed the Gulf gas station sign designs and approved them after considering a number of factors including municipal codes for dimensions and standards; downtown design guidelines; and General Plan policies.
Some of those guidelines specifically talk about having attractive sign design with high quality material that has attractive colors, minimizes bright franchise colors and discourages “franchise and prototype architecture and signage”.
Luchini told the council that the applicant for the Gulf gas station — located at 4212 First St. — first submitted a sign design review application on Dec. 3 for modifications to be made to the price monument, wall, canopy and pump signage as part of the gas station’s rebranding.
The city initially pushed back deeming the application incomplete on Dec. 19 — the city went to the applicant and said they needed to reduce the intensity of the illuminated signage for the canopy, implement lighting shut off times between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. and to not increase the height of the monument pricing sign.
Luchini said since then, staff had met with the applicant about four or five times over several weeks to review possible sign design options, lighting options and minor reductions to signage, which led to the application being approved by Jan. 30.
The approved application included revisions such as minor reduction in size of the trademarked logos on the canopy; the canopy illumination being limited to the lettering of the Gulf logo; mandating the canopy lighting be turned off from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.; and maintaining the existing size of the monument pricing sign.
And while staff’s recommendation last week was for the council to uphold the zoning administrator’s decision to approve the signage changes, many on the council had several qualms with the overall project.
Councilmember Julie Testa, most notably, had several issues with the canopy and monument sign, saying that they did not fit with the aesthetic of the city.
“The new sign is, edge to edge, everything that we are told to discourage,” said Testa, who originally called for a council review of the signage approval. “It does not bring in any of the character of our community … quite frankly, the existing Shell station was nowhere near as overfranchised.”
Councilmember Jeff Nibert also said his biggest issue with the new changes to the Gulf rebrand was the canopy being too overbearing and Councilmember Craig Eicher added that as he drove around town, he took note that the new signage at the Gulf station really stands out compared to the other gas stations.
Testa also said that she had researched the city’s General Plan and that at one point, she used artificial intelligence to determine limitations set in the General Plan related to signage which emphasized safeguarding the city’s appearance and ensuring any signage contributes positively to the city’s visual identity.
Balch was the lone member on the dais that said he thought the site was a “nice, modern investment and upgrade from what we had in the past”.
But Testa said she was more so confused with the fact that all of these upgrades had already been built and installed way before the council had a chance to weigh in on the matter.
“I was surprised to see the changes at the station when it had not yet come to us,” Testa said.
The council is typically informed about decisions made by the city’s zoning administrator on its consent calendar agenda, which consists of items considered routine in nature but council members can choose to pull items from for review. In the case of the Gulf signage, the upgrades were listed on the council’s March 4 consent calendar, which is when Testa pulled the item for the full council review that took place last week.
Luchini said the appeal process, once an application such as this one is approved, gives a 15-day appeal period that has to run its course. But if a council meeting does not fit within that period of time for the dais to review the project and for council members to make any appeals, the actual effective date of the approval for the application is extended to whenever the day after the council meeting takes place.
“In this case, we approved (the gas signage design application) on Jan. 30, the 15 days was roughly around Feb. 15 but there was no council meeting until March 4 so the actual effective date of the zoning administrator approval was March 5,” Luchini said.
Luchini said once staff approved the sign design review on Jan. 30, the city’s building division made a note saying that the permit was ready but that the division couldn’t issue the permit until after the appeal period was up on March 5.
“No permits were actually issued by the city for any work out there until March 5,” he said, noting that he was unaware of any work being done there at the site prior to that date.
Throughout the meeting, Testa said that there had been work done at the site before that March 5 date, which is why staff will be returning to the council with a clearer timeline on when those signage changes occurred.
Consultant Guy Houston – the former state assemblymember and Dublin mayor who is representing the Gulf gas station applicant — countered some of the comments made by Testa and the council by saying that once the appeal period was up on March 5, the city sent a notice on March 7 notifying the applicant that the design review was completed and that permit was issued.
Following the discussion, staff will return with more information about the timeline over the last few months in regards to this project and with modified signage designs after the council made it clear that they would like to see changes to the canopy.
