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OC Board of Adjustment – 6/8/2015 Page 8 of 68 which are towers as defined in the state statute so that is what you are looking at and that is the c omparison. In this 1 instance within the search ring, there was only one other tower in that area and that is the one we will focus on tonight. 2 3 Samantha Cabe: I know this is a relatively new statute that has been in effect less than two years. Has the co urt 4 considered the application of this statute yet, do you know? 5 6 Tom Johnson: I do not know of direct cases taking a look at particular provision of this statute and what it means. 7 There are obviously tower cases. There was one recently in Durham Count y and it came down within the past several 8 months regarding the ________ and what that meant and what was considered to be readily identifiable as a tower but 9 that was the most recent case that I am aware of but some of these other provisions have not because they have really 10 evolved from federal law and they have been around a long time and what happened is there was a move back in 2011 11 to amend the state statute to more closely match federal law which is the Telecommunication Act of 1996. Getting into 12 the ordinance and some of the things I want to break it down and simplify it a little bit. Of course there was discussion 13 earlier about the general standards for Special Use Permits. We will address those provision s and those particular 14 items but there is also specifics for towers, specific requirements for towers that y ’all went into with the state statute and 15 what that means. Again, the first things, the use will maintain or promote public health safety and general welfare if 16 located where proposed and operated, that the use will maintain or enhance the values of contiguous properties. I do 17 have an appraiser who will testify to that effect, Mr. David Smith and the location and character of the use if developed 18 according to plan submitted will be in harmony and in accordance will the Comprehensive Plan and the other plans that 19 are set for in the County Ordinance and within the Comprehensive Plans. A couple of things I want to point out 20 because there have been some discussion and comments from the neighbors about the rural character of this area. 21 Some may want to point that these goals or policies listed on page 56 in the staff report as well as 5.10.1 which is the 22 intent of this ordinance and I think it does provide a good backdrop for getting into specifics. The intent of the ordinance 23 in 5.10.1 speaks to the regulations contained herein are designed to promote for the safe and efficient integration of 24 facilities necessary for the provision of advanced wireless communication services through the community with a goal 25 of establishing reliable, wireless service to the public, governmental agencies and first responders in a manner that 26 provides for the public safety and general welfare of its citizens. That is the guiding light for this ordinance and for why 27 we are here tonight but the other goals listed in number seven on page 56 are very helpful as well. Provision of 28 adequate services and facilities for a high quality of life, efficient and effective public safety including police, fire, 29 telecommunications and emergency services, developing a mechanism for cooperation among t elecommunication 30 providers. Again, that is why I will address the co-location issue with the adjoining tower. And number 7E says the 31 expansion of affordable high speed internet access to rural and underserved areas. Wireless is widely becoming the 32 way we are getting our internet especially in rural areas where you often times may not have Time Warner Cable and 33 others that have cable run to it so that is one of the ways you are getting access to that service and then reliable 34 notification and oversight of emergency assets. This presentation will help you understand where the industry is and 35 why we are here tonight. Number one, consumers are more often than not relying exclusively on wireless devices for 36 their communications. We used to have landline phones; still do have landline phones but the move is away from that 37 and these are some United States and North Carolina figures that show this. There are 32% of the households in the 38 United States that are wireless only. That is they drop their landline phone for economics; they just don’t use it for 39 whatever reason. In North Carolina, that is 33%. Those that are mostly wireless on top of that, another 16% in the 40 United States, 13% in North Carolina is where you may have a landline phone but what do you p ick up to use most of 41 the time and that is the wireless device. Why that becomes important is the challenge here, nationwide 70%, I think is a 42 little less in Orange County by only average 70% of the calls to 911 are from wireless devices so it is importan t to have 43 a signal strength that is strong enough that not only when you are outside you can use your device but when you are 44 inside a commercial building with thicker walls or a home that the signal is strong enough and when you pick up that 45 phone to dial 911 you can dial 911 and get the assistance you need. But this also show some graphs regarding the 46 number of wireless subscriptions, the number in the U.S. population with a wireless device and again the number of 47 wireless only households is growing tremendously since 2000 or 2002. Data traffic has gone up tremendously since 48 2007 and particularly the advent of the introduction of the IPhone when we started using more smart devices to access 49 data and not only do we have our handheld devices, our IPhone, ou r IPad, our tablet and wireless in our laptop 50