NS ORD-1996-033 Zoning Ordinance Text Amendments - Telecommunication Towers

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52 JUNE 1995 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCiA110N Local Planning Issues in end of last year.That, in turn,has expanded the number of Siting Cellular Towers cellular transmission sires to 17,920 last December from just 384 a decade earlier. In response to both the increasing demand for mobile By Michelle Gregory communication options and a very aggressive lobbying effort by the industry,the FCC opened another portion of the airwaves for In coming months,communities may lose the righc to regulate the industry use.On March 14, the agency completed the biggest siting of cellular telephone cowers,just as that industry is emerging auction in U.S.history, luting three months and costing as a major player in the larger telecommunications industry.The telecommunications carriers S7 billion.The airwave rights were Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) filed a divided geographically into 99 licenses that went to commercial petition with the Federal Communications Commission(FCC) mobile radio service(CMRS) carriers nationwide.The licenses last December that asps for federal preemption of local zoning were awarded to the highest bidders among a combination of powers over cellular cransmission-facilities.—This issue of Zoning older and newly formed companies.The FCC will auction more News aims to acquaint local planners with the impacts,real and licenses later this year to accommodate private mobile radio perceived,of cellular towers.Local siting regulations,staff reports, service(PMRS)carriers,which serve freight transporters,public and telecommunications plans from 15 jurisdictions were reviewed safety entities,citizens band radio,and ham operators.The newly to provide a summary of siting considerations. licensed carriers are already acquiring sites for towers and their Planners should understand that some jurisdictions regulate accompanying equipment buildings.Where a market exists for cellular towers specifically,while others have regulations that cellular communications,local government must be prepared co apply to"communication towers"generally.Wherever possible, deal with siting issues. we have tried to cull examples of regulatory techniques specificCamorr rd cellular The industry's growth to cellular technology.These varying degrees of specificity also }lag has outpaced many local exist in the regulations of many state communications and tower-a solution to governments'ability to public utilities agencies.Planners should learn their state's g_ _ understand the impacts of bureaucratic structure and its definition of communication a cellular towers and, cowers before drafting local regulations. therefore,co properly sire Representatives of the cellular industry were also consulted and regulate them.The for this article.In contrast to the cone of the CTIA petition, situation is further many expressed an eagerness to work with APA and local complicated when residents, communities to educate planners and citizens coward the expressing alarm over the development of safe,fair,and informed regulations. aesthetic and reported health-related effects of Cellular History cellular cowers,prompt In 1974,the FCC expanded the radio spectrum available to the a:.�.._ hasty,reactionary public in order to make-room for budding cellular telecommu- regulation.To avoid writing .V • j nications technology.Through the mid-1980s,the industry , ` '•`A bad law,some communities worked to develop higher-quality uw=iission devices.Cellular have instituted siting technology was first marketed-to consumers in the form of the moratoriums until they have car phone.It presented local governments with the phenomena ample opportunity to of cellular telephone antennas and the rowers on which they am research and formulate mounted—cowers that had to be erected somewhere in the regulations thac are fair to community. Unlike grouvA-wired telecommunications,cellular both the community and technology made it posul&for a caller to travel while commu- the industry. nicacing with someone at a conventional telephone or with Both trends have put another mobile user.Cellular technology,explained in greater carriers on the offensive. derail below,operates on a fixed number of channels that share Thwarted by local"learning the same radio waves.As-a mobile user passes through"cells" curves"and"regulatory that parcel the landscape into a transmitting grid,the caller's barriers"in their efforts to break into new markets,they have connection is"parched"from one cell antenna to the next, sought powerful remedies.The CTIA petition argues that the Twenty,years later,personal communication services(PCS) supremacy clause(section 332)of the 1934 Federal have expanded to include hand-held portable phones and Communications Act authorizes preemption of state and local paging systems,and they are everywhere.A survey in the regulation of cellular tower siting.APA,in a letter to the FCC, January 1993 issue of Consumer Reports reported chat cellular expressed opposition to such preemption.In March,executive technology added an average of 7,300 users per day in 1992, director Michael Barker cold the FCC that local communities bringing the U.S. total to about 10 million.Those numbers and planners are in the best position to balance their concerns have continued to grow,reaching more than 24 million by the with the needs of the cellular industry.The National