Article 7-1 PURPOSE
A. The purpose of this Article regulating signs of all types is: to establish comprehensive provisions that will promote the public welfare and safety by safe placement and installation of appropriate signage; to establish reasonable regulations that promote effective messaging and economic vitality for local businesses and services; and to enhance the visual environment of the city of Goodyear. The regulation of signs within the city of Goodyear is necessary and in the public interest for the following reasons:
1. To promote and aid the public and private sectors in the identification, location and advertisement of goods and services.
2. To balance public and private objectives by allowing adequate avenues for both commercial and noncommercial messages.
3. To allow for adequate and effective signs in all zoning districts while preventing signs from dominating the appearance of the area.
4. To maintain high quality signage throughout the City.
5. To provide consistent sign design standards that enable the fair and consistent enforcement of these regulations.
B. It is the city of Goodyear’s policy to regulate signs in a constitutional manner that does not favor commercial speech over noncommercial speech and is content neutral as to noncommercial messages, which are within the protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and corollary provisions of the Arizona Constitution. If any provision of this Article is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, such finding shall not affect the validity of other provisions of this Article, which can be given effect without the invalid provision.
C. With the property owner’s consent, a protected noncommercial message of any type may be substituted for any duly permitted or allowed commercial message or any duly permitted or allowed noncommercial message, provided that the sign structure or mounting device is permitted without consideration of message content. Such substitution of message may be made without any additional approval or permitting. The purpose of this provision is to prevent any inadvertent favoring of commercial speech over protected noncommercial speech, or favoring of any particular noncommercial message over any other noncommercial message.
D. Nothing in this Code shall be construed to prohibit a person from holding a sign while picketing or protesting on public property that has been determined to be a traditional or designated public forum, so long as the person holding the sign does not block ingress and egress from buildings, create a safety hazard by impeding travel on sidewalks, in bike or vehicle lanes, or violate any other reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions adopted by the City.