And it’s on to Draft 13.

The Damariscotta Planning Board held a public hearing on Monday, March 7 at 7 p.m. to address minor changes to zoning rules and the Comprehensive Plan. These issues were dealt with in under five minutes.

The major discussion item was the proposed sign ordinance that had been reconciled with Town Manager Matt Lutkus’ changes during the workshop held on Feb. 29.

Planning board members and members of the public seemed equally confused by some of the changes.

Most of the Draft 12 ordinance met with little resistance, and the board made minor changes in language to the ordinance. But three issues in the ordinance took the better part of two hours to hammer out.

The first issue related to the size of electronically changeable signs in the C2 business district. This is the region beyond the downtown area on Business Route 1.  In the draft ordinance, the size of the electronically changeable signs was limited to 24 square feet.

The second issue was the question of whether these signs would be required to be dimmable, or to be turned off after 11 p.m. and to remain off until 7 a.m.

And the third, somewhat surprising issue, related to inflatable signs, such as the waving creatures that the board believes create a hazard and distraction to drivers.

The size issue was challenged by Rob Gardiner, who owns Damariscotta Hardware. At a previous meeting on the sign ordinance, Gardiner’s engineer appeared and explained that the signs came in two commercially available sizes — 24 square feet, or 8 by 3, or 32 square feet, or 8 by 4.  The Planning Board, which had previously wanted to keep such signs from proliferating in the C2 zone, compromised with the business interests and agreed to 24 square feet, as long as the image or text did not change more than once every 30 minutes.  At that meeting and subsequent ones, Gardiner expressed satisfaction with the 24-square-foot sign, but on Monday, he lobbied strongly for a 32-square-foot sign.

He was OK with the 24-foot sign, board members reminded him. His own engineer said those were the two options, they said.

Gardiner said that he needed the larger sign to plan for his advertising needs in the future, and said he didn’t think the Planning Board should be in the business of limiting signage because the district hadn’t been overrun with signs yet. “If the manual changeable signs can be 32 square feet, I don’t see the difference in allowing my sign to be that size,” he said.

The board told him that the electronically changeable signs were very different from the manual ones. “There is more of an impact,” said Shari Sage. “The signs don’t need to be as big because they are far more noticeable.”

“And of course we’re in the business of limiting signs, Rob,” said Bruce Garren. “That’s what the ordinance is for, to limit signage. We’ve had to compromise between business interests and the interests of all the other people in town,” he said. “Many of them didn’t want changing signs at all.”

In the end, the compromise was that Gardiner and others could purchase 32-foot signs, but only 75 percent of the signs could be illuminated.

The second issue related to night-time intensity of the lights. Bruce Rockwood said that he didn’t understand why the lights couldn’t be turned off at night, when the businesses were closed anyway.

“There are people who can’t sleep when there is too much light,” Rockwood said. “And there are people who want to use their backyards to look at the heavens or watch a meteor shower without light pollution.”

“But what is light pollution?” Garren said. “Is there a quantifiable amount of light?” Rockwood didn’t know, but Town Planner Anthony Dater pointed out that a lot of communities are restricting not only signs, but lights, in new construction, to deal with light pollution for the benefit of neighbors, whether they are trying to sleep or are backyard astronomers.

Gardiner objected to the notion of turning off his lights, saying he needed them for advertising purposes.

“But there are residents in the area, too, Rob,” Sage said. “And they’ve been speaking to us as well.”

Since the current iteration of lights are not capable of being dimmed, this restriction was removed.  The board agreed to reexamine it at a later time when LED lamps are more widely available.

The ordinance had actually stipulated that all internally or externally lit signs be dimmed by 50 percent between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. This was an error, and Dater removed it from his copy of the ordinance.

The final issue was that of inflatable signs. On this issue, the Board refused to be moved, despite Gardiner’s objections. The town did agree that temporary inflatables could be permitted for five days with liability insurance if the object was 200 feet back from the road.

Because of all the changes that were made to the ordinance, the town will have to hold another hearing for the new version, which will be Draft 13. The hearing will take place on April 4 at 7 p.m. during the next regularly scheduled Planning Board meeting.