East Hampton Village Seeks To Shriink Real Estate Signs

East Hampton Village Board members have their eyes on real estate and construction signs, and they’re of a mind to make them shrink. The current size limit is seven square feet, and village officials have been thinking about paring that down to one and one-half.

That is the largest size allowed in Shelter Island Town as of April 2010. East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., who proposed using Shelter Island’s sign regulations as a model for amending East Hampton’s, said Shelter Island Supervisor James Dougherty told him there had been less resistance to the size limit than expected, and that most came from off-island realtors.

“East Hampton Village is not for sale. It sends the wrong signal,” the mayor said. While “not berating the real estate industry,” he said what he especially objects to is open house signs with balloons.

Bruce Siska, a new board member, suggested imposing a time limit, adding that there are two signs on his block that have been up for years.

Barbara Borsack, another board member, said that would be “hard to police,” as someone would have to keep track of when the signs went up or were taken down. The village attorney, Linda Riley, said much the same thing, reasoning that since permits are not required, it would be hard to pin down when signs were first put up.

Ms. Borsack wondered if a one-and-one-half-square-foot sign would be large enough to be useful. “That’s not a very big sign,” she said, adding that it seemed it would barely have space for a phone number. “I don’t want to make it more difficult; these are tough times,” she said.

Richard Lawler, another board member, agreed.

Mayor Rickenbach said he was willing to compromise on size. As board members began to hold meeting agendas up to assess exactly how large a one-and-one-half-square-foot sign would be, the mayor suggested that they reconsider the matter at the next Village Board work session, on December 1, with some illustrations at hand. They will show what signs of different measurements—two by two square feet, three by three, and so on—would look like.