Dispute looms over San Clemente outlet center’s signs along I-5

San Clemente’s outlet shopping center and people who own homes across the freeway appear to be on a collision course over business signs that the center displays along I-5.

The 325,000-square-foot Outlets at San Clemente, located along southbound I-5 between the Avenida Vista Hermosa and Avenida Pico exits, presently has 18 temporary, permitted banner signs. They are designed to blend with the walls to look like wall signs rather than banners.

Developer Steve Craig is applying for a permit to display 36 permanent signs facing I-5. Officials said that the signs would include 25 on outlet buildings, five on an approved hotel that is to be built and six on a 45-foot-tall tower yet to be built.

The city has commissioned an environmental study to analyze potential impacts. People who want to submit specific concerns for analysis can write to Associate City Planner Cliff Jones at jonesc@san-clemente.org. Submissions are due Wednesday, April 26.

Areas covered by the study will include aesthetics, traffic, land-use issues and biological resources (an adjacent canyon).

At a public workshop held Thursday, April 13, people who live across the freeway from the outlets and look at the signs daily assailed the sign proposal, asserting that the signs already on display damage property values, upset residents’ tranquility and quality of life and cause dangerous distracted driving.

Residents called for minimal signs.

“The outlets in Carlsbad maybe have one little sign that says ‘outlets this exit,’ and there’s no freeway-oriented signage,” resident Thomas Whiten said. “Driving down the freeway looking at 35 or 45 signs trying to figure out what stores are there and whether you’re interested in them is as bad as trying to reset your GPS … or texting at the same time. It’s a safety hazard.”

“I feel bad for the homeowners that have to look at the signage,” said Marie Kirk, a Talega resident. “I drive through, and I am just ashamed at how San Clemente is changing.”

“We don’t want to live in the Citadel by the Sea,” resident Dan Feinberg said.

Craig said he was unable to attend the workshop due to a scheduling conflict, but he said there are misperceptions about sign aesthetics and traffic impacts. He said his proposed Outlets at San Clemente signs will not be flashy like The Citadel. He said they will be tasteful, “halo-lit signs that only cast the shadow of a letter and do not push any light out of the sign at all.” He said they will be comparable to the quality of signs in Santa Barbara and in keeping with the center’s Spanish Colonial architecture.

Several residents complained that construction of the outlet center took their ocean views and the signs further lower property values. They asked why the outlets’ desire to make profits should be more important than their desire to hold onto what they’ve had.

“Pretty much you know what’s in an outlet,” resident Gail Hiduke said. “We know that every outlet has a Nike. Wouldn’t it be good if they just had like a tower on I-5 that said Outlets, Pico – one on I-5 south, one on I-5 north, and that would pretty much tell people what the outlets are.”

Jim Smith, president of the homeowner association for Bella Vista, located on a hill behind San Clemente High School, asked the city to suspend the environmental process as his HOA was not notified of it and he believed other HOAs in the area were not.

Craig said some people believe that once they’ve built their dream house nothing else should be built. He said he designed the outlet center to fulfill some 30 pages of obligations in a development agreement with the city, and he believes it turned out well. He said he has rights to freeway-oriented signs under terms of the development agreement.

At a City Council meeting on April 18, local resident Karen Ahola complained that sketches of proposed signs at the April 13 meeting misrepresented the scale of signs. She asked the council to close what she called a loophole in the city’s banner ordinance that allows repeated renewal of temporary signs at the outlets.

Council members decided not to reconsider codes governing temporary signs at this time, while the biggest sign proposal in town, the outlets, is pending. That could cloud the issues, Councilman Tim Brown suggested.

Local resident Benjamin Doran told the council he doesn’t believe San Clemente residents realize the magnitude of illuminated signs that are coming and won’t “until it’s going to be in our faces.”

The city expects to receive a draft version of the environmental analysis in early June. The public will have a 45-day period to comment and the Planning Commission will hold a hearing. The City Council could consider the analysis and the sign proposal as early as October.

For approval, the City Council would have to issue what the city calls a “sign exception” permit finding the signage suitable. In 2016 the City Council voted 3-1 to ban new freeway-oriented signs anywhere in town, abolishing the exception permit. But the ban doesn’t apply to the outlets, since the retail center was approved under earlier rules.

“Short of any renegotiation of the development agreement, we would expect the city of San Clemente to live up to their obligations just as we have lived up to our obligations,” Craig said.