Agenda - 11-27-1995 - C-4-a - Laserfiche WebLink

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144 need to be closer together, but will generally not need to be as tall. Bell South and AT&T received the two PCS franchises awarded by the FCC to serve North Carolina and South Carolina Bell South has indicated that 40 to 50 equipment sites will be needed in the Triangle within the next 2 years in order to provide the initial coverage for the t system. Approximately eight of these sites are anticipated in Orange County(excluding its municipalities). The height generally needed for the new towers is expected to be about 200 feet. After the initial 40-50 towers projected in the Triangle are erected, more towers will be needed, based on demand. However, the additional towers would require increasingly less height and bulk as the area is"filled in". Ultimately,towers could appear as structures similar to tall light poles. Increasingly, communication equipment is being sited in connection with other tall structures to reduce the construction of towers solely for that purpose. Examples include tall buildings, water towers, church steeples, and clock towers. For this reason, not all of the antenna equipment needed will require construction of or use of a telecommunication tower. LOCAL AND NATIONWIDE CONCERN During the past several years,this issue of tower proliferation has been raised by other jurisdictions both locally and nationwide. Orange County amended its Zoning Ordinance in October 1994 to require that possibilities for co-location of antenna facilities be investigated by potential applicants. The City of Raleigh and Durham City/County recently adopted regulatory changes to address issues such as tower height, distances between towers and co-location. On June 21, 1995, the Triangle J Council of Governments sponsored an informational meeting between local government representatives and telecommunication providers. The issue has also been discussed at several meetings of the Durham- Chapel Hill Work Group. In response to requests for information from a number of jurisdictions nationwide,the American Planning Association recently published an informational report concerning telecommunications towers (attached). The report makes reference to the ways in which a number of jurisdictions throughout the country have addressed the issue of telecommunication towers. A rewrite of federal telecommunications law is now being considered. If ratified as currently proposed, the Telecommunications Act of 1995 would give the Federal Communication Commission approval authority for the siting and construction of cellular towers and satellite antennas, preempting local zoning regulations. On August 3, 1995, the Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution (attached) opposing this preemption. TECHNOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS Types of Towers There are three primary types of construction for communication towers:self-supporting lattice towers,guyed towers, and self-supporting monopole towers. The height of the towers range from about 100 to about 400 feet. Factors such as elevation and the number of antennas or users on the structure influence the height. Constraints in Placement Each communications provider needs a basic network of towers to provide coverage within its service area. The basic coverage network is already established for the existing services provided by Sprint, Dial Call and GTE,and has yet to be established for the PCS providers. Additional towers are based on demand. In areas where use is heavy, additional towers are needed to provide uninterrupted service. Demand-based facilities are more limited in the range within which they can be located. Flexibility in placement is limited in some cases to a radius of about a 1/4 mile. 4