OK—The approved change allows for an earthier color for the bank’s logo. EAMON MURPHY/Acorn Newspapers
A request for a touch of color on a sign at the County Line Shopping Center in Westlake Village sparked an unusually controversial discussion among City Council members who pride themselves on their tradition of decorum.
This ethos of civic etiquette – affectionately known as Westlake Way – temporarily clashed with the city’s commitment to using a muted palette of predominantly earthy tones for business signs throughout the city, and raised questions about how consistently it would be applied. The result was an uneasy attempt at compromise and the promise of further discussions about citywide policy.
The issue was the monument sign in front of the freestanding shopping center building at the corner of Agoura and Lakeview Canyon Road, which is currently occupied by the Banc of California.
At a meeting on June 26, the center’s owner, Marshall Gross, asked for permission to allow future tenants to use the trademarked logo on their signs in color. This was done as part of a revised sign program that accompanied the remodeling of the building’s exterior. The other signs throughout the center would have to have white letters and logos on a bronze background.
The Banc of California’s current logo is bronze, meaning it would fit into Westlake’s preferred palette of beige, bronze and brown anyway. But that might be different for a potential second tenant or future residents.
The ability to display the logos of potential tenants in color for the freestanding building, which is larger and more business-oriented than the stores in the mall, was seen as a plus for County Line Center in securing leases.
In Westlake Village, however, even major companies like Target and In-N-Out Burger have toned down their iconic logos, setting a precedent for boredom.
Some city leaders believe that County Line is in a special place.
“Even though the intersection of Lakeview and Agoura is not geographically downtown, it is downtown,” said Council Member Brad Halpern.
As a venue for parades and street festivals, it has a special aesthetic significance and should showcase the city’s vision, he said.
Halpern’s opposition to allowing different sign colors was joined by Deputy Mayor Kelly Honig, who said the distinction made by the brand logo carries little weight.
Mayor Ned Davis, however, was more torn and pointed out that the big brands with their bronze logos facing the highway were allowed to have more colorful signs in the parking lot.
“Vanilla alone doesn’t attract much sales,” he said.
Consensus was difficult to reach, and the council was missing member Ray Pearl, who had participated in the initial discussions along with Davis as a member of the Land Use Committee, so the council decided to postpone the hearing until the next meeting.
“As you can see, we take this sort of thing extremely seriously here in Westlake Village,” Honig told the County Line representative, “which is why it looks like it. We seem to be extremely picky, and we are.”
When discussion on this issue resumed on July 10, Pearl’s presence brought a completely different perspective.
He thanked the County Line owner for keeping what could otherwise be a run-down shopping center in good shape, including bringing in new restaurants to replace the closed Regency Westlake Village Twin movie theater.
“They literally asked for an exception, for a building, and I just don’t believe color is our enemy,” Pearl said.
He cited numerous examples of logos using color in the more commercial part of town: Dunkin’ Donuts, Baja Fresh, Bank of America, PetSmart and the newly approved Squeeze Massage.
However, the city’s general signage ordinance allows for specific regulations for shopping centers.
With the county line motion likely to be voted down, Pearl said he was upset that colors seemed to be OK in some places, while certain areas deserved special consideration.
“The council majority tonight supports inconsistency at the expense of this side of the highway, and make no mistake about it,” he said.
In the end, the city council granted permission to change the sign on the condition that the logo on the freestanding building be an “earth tone.”
Pearl disagreed, with Council Member Sue McSweeney concurring.
Honig suggested revising the citywide ordinance to resolve the discrepancies, a suggestion Pearl supported.
Later in the meeting, the issue of aesthetics came up again when the council discussed a guide to the color scheme of building exteriors.
Pearl praised the efforts of the staff but criticized those of the council.
“The Council continues to create chaos,” he said, criticising what he saw as overlapping and contradictory programmes.
Honig took exception to the remark, saying it did not reflect the hard work that goes into maintaining the city’s standards and was “out of character with the way we normally conduct ourselves in Westlake Village.”
As senior planner Megan Sinkula noted from personal experience, “Color can be a very heated topic. Just like signage, it’s the first thing you notice on a project.”
