Former Council Member Argues Sign Ordinance at Collegeville Meeting

Former Borough Council Member John Zvarick had a heated debate with  Solicitor Mark Hosterman regarding signage for his family's business on Route 29 in Collegeville, at the August 1 Borough Council Meeting.

“I need exposure for my business, and it will not hurt the borough,” Zvarick said.

The issue, which has been brewing since last July when Zvarick was denied zoning relief from signage requirements and an ordinance variance and interpretation, relates to signs for Lily Laser and Beauty, part of a five-tenant building located at 534 Second Avenue in Collegeville.

“This strip is really the Las Vegas of Collegeville,” said Zvarick. “It is a commercial strip. Every business has a large sign.”

Currently the building is zoned Village Commercial 1 (V-1), allowing all five tenants to share one free-standing sign at the road and a directory. This gives each tenant roughly 11-square-feet of signage, in addition to individualized window signs. Zvarick believes that, based on the amount of road frontage, his business should be permitted to have its own 35-square-foot sign at the road.

Hosterman said that tenants of the buildings are considered professional offices, and can have the same signs that all other professional offices are afforded.

“Don’t confuse retail with professional offices – they’re different,” Hosterman said. “Professional offices are not impulse purchases - like a Dollar Store is, like a Wawa is - you call, you make an appointment, you find out where the practitioner is, and you go.”

Hosterman cited the Collegeville Professional Center across the street, which is zoned similarly to the building in question, and has found success with shared and directory signage, along with window signs.

 “The ordinances are being properly interpreted across the street at Collegeville Professional Center, and they are being improperly interpreted and twisted and tormented by the applicant for the subject property,” said Hosterman.

According to Article 15 of the Collegeville Borough Zoning Code, the V-1 code “is intended to encourage the preservation of the existing historic houses where road widenings are not needed, and adequate rights-of-way where they are needed, and the residential appearance of the areas. … The V-1 District is also intended to protect the adjoining residential neighborhoods from any impacts of the types of land uses permitted herein.”

Local business owners remain concerned, and there were several supporters in the crowd.

“We are a new start-up business,” Liana Griuryan, Zvarick’s wife, said of her company. “We are different from other professional businesses.”

Eric Page, of Phoenixville, who also supports the business owners, said “we ask that you take a pragmatic view, and make a special exception for signage.”

When another meeting-goer asked if the board is willing to help, Hosterman said that, if the board decided to discuss the issue further, it would be in executive session.

Zvarick stated that the building’s owners, Gambone Development, are challenging this decision in the Court of Common Pleas.