Gulf Gas Station signage debate comes to an end following council approval last month

The contentious debate over new signage at the Gulf Gas Station on the corner of First Street and Vineyard Avenue in Pleasanton came to a close last month after the City Council approved the latest modifications made to the station’s canopy and monument sign.

Councilmember Julie Testa, who had previously raised concerns about the canopy and monument signage, pulled the item from the council’s Nov. 18 consent calendar for further discussion and moved to deny the modifications that the gas station’s applicant made since the council last discussed the item in May.

Testa’s main issue with the signage since the topic first came up was that it did not fall within the guidelines set by the city’s General Plan and the applicant did not follow the appropriate process before installing the signage.

“The recent Gulf Station is inconsistent with the requirements and standards set forth in our General Plan,” Testa said. “According to our sign design guidance, canopy designs should be compatible with the scale, color palette and context. The current (Gulf Gas Station) design does not meet that standard.”

However, her motion failed to get enough votes — all but Vice Mayor Jeff Nibert disagreed. A separate motion was made to uphold the city zoning administrator’s approval of the signage and the modifications that have been made over the past year, passing 3-2.

Councilmember Matt Gaidos said the applicant did everything that was asked of them by making the modifications based on feedback from staff and the council.

“If we want, as a council, to be more specific about what kind of signs we want and provide more guidance to the staff and to applicants to enforce some sort of objective standards, we can do that,” Gaidos said during the Nov. 18 council meeting. “But at this point I’m not willing to, essentially, make them tear down what they’ve built.”

The months-long saga initially began back in March when Testa pulled the sign design review application for the Gulf Gas Station from the council’s consent calendar for further discussion. The application was in regards to the installation of the new monument, wall, canopy, and pump signage as part of its rebranding from Shell to Gulf.

Due to a lack of time, the council pushed the discussion to April 15 where Testa and other council members voiced their concerns over the overall aesthetic of the new signs and about the process for how those changes were installed prior to the council meeting. The council asked staff for more information and met again in May where they approved majority of the new signage, except for the canopy.

Testa said then — and reiterated Nov. 18 — that she was surprised to see the signage changes had been made before the council ever had a chance to weigh in on the matter.

“The signage was installed before the required permits were issued … (and) before the City Council’s review,” Testa said.

Senior city planner Eric Luchini previously explained to the council that the sign design review was completed in January after over a month of meetings following an initially incomplete application. City approval, with an effective date of March 5, was issued once the application was complete.

The permits were held until March 5 so the building division could complete its plan check; however, Luchini said the applicant installed the new signage without permits sometime between late February and early March, before the March 5 effective date.

Unaware of the council’s March 4 request to review the signage approval, the building division then issued the sign design review permits, after which the applicant installed the monument signage with those new permits.

The council’s final approval marks the end of the signage debate; however, the project applicant will likely submit for another permit to add some lighting to a palm tree located on the gas station property. 

Staff said that the permit will follow the typical building process and go through the appropriate channels.

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