In any town, sign ordinances can be one of the hardest to craft, Damariscotta Town Planner Anthony Dater said. That’s because the rules need to balance the townspeople’s aesthetic leanings with businesses’ desire to advertise on their signs, he said.

The Damariscotta Planning Board is about midway through drafting new sign rules, which would then go to selectmen to consider putting on the June town meeting warrant.

Asked how the process has gone so far, Dater said, “I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I think it’s going pretty well.” Efforts to seek public input have helped, including a November 2015 forum that consultant Mark Eyerman of Planning Decisions Inc. led.

“I think that helped us immeasurably,” Dater said.

Involving the public helped Camden get a sign ordinance that works well, according to Camden code enforcement officer Steve Wilson. Damariscotta used Camden’s ordinance as a starting point in drafting new rules, Dater said.

Wilson, interviewed separately, said unless a sign is part of a project in front of Camden’s planning board, all signage goes through the code enforcement office for approval.

“Everybody’s been really happy with it,” Wilson said. It’s a permitting process that might look different in Damariscotta, which has a part-time CEO compared to Camden’s full-time and part-time ones.

Instead, the ordinance may call for all permit requests to go to the town planner and the planning board, Dater said. However it works, it should be an improvement over the current setup, where no permit is needed, he said.

As a result, some signs go up that don’t meet town rules, and then the part-time CEO has to take up the matter. The  CEO would still be involved when enforcement  issues arise, but the permitting process should reduce those, Dater said.

In addition to the possible addition of permitting, the new rules are being sought to address technologies that have come on the scene since the old rules were set, namely LED lighting and digital, changeable signs.

“The planning board and the town are being confronted with (these) more and more, so they’ve said we’ve got to get a better handle on signs and try to make them compatible with townspeople’s view of things.”

Dater said it doesn’t appear that the newer types of signs would face a ban, but there may be limits on where in town they can be located, how bright they can be and the times of day they may be on, he said.

“It’s fair to say the planning board is seeking a balance.”

The board was set to continuing drafting the possible new rules at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 1 at town hall.