By Brian Shane

Staff Writer

Ocean Pines plans to add new electronic signage at the north and south gate entrances to the community, but Worcester County leaders need to tweak a county ordinance to make it happen.

The Ocean Pines Board of Directors wants to replace older signage with new electronic message signs at the north and south gate entrances, at Manklin Creek Road and Cathell Road, respectively. Such signs would provide only information about Ocean Pines and would not show any advertising content, and they’d maintain the same “monument” style of signage that already exists in the community.

The board’s reason for the sign replacement is to eliminate the clutter of changeable signage along Ocean Parkway’s right-of-way, according to a Dec. 6 internal memo by Jennifer Keener, director of Development Review and Permitting. Electronic signs also offer greater immediacy for altering a message.

This discussion came before the Worcester County Planning Commission on Dec. 5, as a request from Ocean Pines General Manager John Viola. He was asking for the existing law about signs and sign placement to be amended on behalf of the Ocean Pines Association.

It’s not a new request, according to Keener. After years of talking back and forth as to where to place possible electronic messaging signs, the county and the Ocean Pines Association realized that they need a text amendment to accommodate the change.

The reason for this is that the code as written now prohibits a development from having more than one electronic messaging sign at a time per parcel, Keener told the Worcester County Board of Commissioners at its Dec. 17 meeting.

Keener asked the commissioners to create an amendment to this law. The amendment does two things: it adds the provision for electronic signs to be allowed in a commercial district, and it also allows for a second electronic messaging sign on the same parcel.

County Commissioner Chip Bertino (District 5, Ocean Pines) agreed to sponsor the bill, which will now come back before the commissioners at a future meeting for a vote.

Bertino said that Ocean Pines may have a maximum of eight such electronic signs they can install community-wide.