WESTBROOK – The Westbrook City Council has given its final approval to amendments to the city’s sign ordinance.

The amendment, approved Tuesday by a 7-0 vote of the council, allows 100 square feet of signage for each 25 feet of a building’s road frontage, with the exception of buildings located in the city’s industrial park district, where the allowable signage increases to 200 square feet.

City Administrator Jerre Bryant said the genesis of the amendment came when Rowe Ford sought approvals to renovate and expand its Main Street property. Bryant said under the existing ordinance, the car dealership would have had to reduce its signage from more than 1,500 square feet to 500 square feet to conform to the ordinance.

Bryant said Bill Baker, Westbrook’s assistant city administrator for business and community relations, met with Rowe Ford and together with the city staff, came up with the amendment that tied the maximum amount of signage to the size of the property in question.

Wally Camp Jr., the owner and president of Rowe Ford, told the council at a public hearing before the vote that the sheer amount of signs required at his business, which handles multiple car lines, would not allow Rowe to meet the existing requirements.

“It’s not possible to get down to 500 square feet of signs,” he said.

Camp said he was pleased that the city was willing to work with his business and he feels that the changes to the ordinance “will work well for the city.”

Camp wasn’t the only business owner to speak in favor of the amendments.

Don Lee, the president and owner of Lee Auto Malls, which has a dealership on Main Street in Westbrook, said his business has more than 1,000 square feet of signs on 15 acres of land, and he said the new ordinance make it “much easier for us to add new businesses.”

“It’s a good proposal, well thought out,” added Jeff Messer, the owner and president of Messer Truck Equipment.

In other news, the council gave its initial 7-0 approval to a $100,000 reimbursement to Casella Waste Systems for the payment of impact fees due to the Maine Department of Transportation for improvements to the intersection of Spring Street and County Road connected to the construction of the company’s transfer station now under construction on County Road.

Bryant said the payment was part of the city’s agreement with Casella, signed in September 2008, which required the city to reimburse the company for three $50,000 impact fees connected with the reconstruction of the intersection. The city paid the first installment when the agreement was signed and the remainder was due at the completion of the project.

Bryant said the $150,000 actually represented a cost savings for the city. According to Bryant, the city’s initial agreement with Casella, signed in July 2000, called for Westbrook to “pay the cost of all repairs, improvements and upgrades to the city’s streets (including the addition and replacement of traffic signals) required to obtain all permits, licenses and approvals necessary to construct, maintain and operate the transfer station.”

When changes to the scope of the project and delays in the commencement of construction required the city and Casella to strike a new agreement, Bryant said, Westbrook negotiated free curbside recycling and reduced the city’s obligation on the road repairs to $150,000, leaving Casella responsible for the rest.