Orange County NC Website
Approved 7/8/2013 <br />OC Board of Adjustment – 6/10/2013 Page 4 of 92 <br /> 1 <br />Larry Wright: For the record, on page 9, item 1, could you define for the record, there are no pre-2 <br />selected sites, how do you define that? 3 <br /> 4 <br />Michael Harvey: In accordance with the Unified Development Ordinance Section 5.10.8, we have a 5 <br />hierarchy of sites that we have determined represent the optimal location sites for a 6 <br />telecommunications facility. That particular section is located in Section 5.10.8, subsection (B) 4, 7 <br />Standards of Evaluation, Subsection B, Location of Wireless Support Structures. Applicant for 8 <br />facilities shall locate site and erect said facilities according to the following priorities, in this order, on 9 <br />existing county owned facilities without increasing the height of the tower structure, on County owned 10 <br />properties or facilities, on properties in areas zoned for commercial or industrial use, on properties in 11 <br />areas zoned agricultural residential, on properties in areas zoned for residential use. We are 12 <br />stipulating in our abstract that there are no existing County owned facilities in this area, there are no 13 <br />existing telecommunications facilities in this area that can be co-located upon, there are no County 14 <br />owned properties or facilities where a cell tower could be put in this general area of the County. 15 <br />There are no properties in this general area of the County zoned for commercial industrial use and 16 <br />this is no properties near areas zoned agricultural residential so we believe this is consistent with the 17 <br />hierarchy. 18 <br /> 19 <br />Larry Wright: On page 10, you referred to items A through F, don’t they come in the 2030 20 <br />Comprehensive Plan, and isn’t that drawn from Chapter 8? 21 <br /> 22 <br />Michael Harvey: One is drawn from Chapter 5 which is a Land Use Goal. Services and Facility 23 <br />Community Goals are derived from Chapter 7. The rest are taken from Chapters 7 and 8. 24 <br /> 25 <br />Karen Kemerait: My name is Karen Kemerait and I am an attorney with the law firm of Styers, 26 <br />Kemerait and Mitchell. I have been sworn. I am here on behalf of American Tower Corporation and 27 <br />AT&T Mobility in regard to their co-applicant and special use permit application to construct a 199 foot 28 <br />monopole. Before I begin providing information about how we have met all the specific and general 29 <br />requirements, I would like to give some general background information to explain why we are here 30 <br />today. I think everyone knows that in the past several years there have been dramatic changes in the 31 <br />technology for wireless telecommunications and those changes have resulted in real impacts to 32 <br />telecommunications carriers, to communities such as Orange County and to the customers of the 33 <br />wireless communications companies. With wireless communications, the typical services which are 34 <br />the telephone services and there are so many more benefits. For example, we now have the services 35 <br />and benefits of convenience so that the public can make calls from just about anywhere. The public 36 <br />can work remotely from their offices, coffee shops and their homes. There are also the benefits of 37 <br />safety so motorists on roads can dial 911 from their phone during emergencies and also the 911 38 <br />benefits during times of natural disaster such as a hurricane. The landline systems go down and 39 <br />telecommunications towers remain standing and their 911 services remain available. Also, I think the 40 <br />most dramatic technological change has been about the connectedness to the world that has come 41 <br />about with the advent of smart phones. The smart phones have allowed for the digital devices 42 <br />messaging through email, text, data phone and video. And with these changes, the public has come 43 <br />to expect and sometimes demand access to these different services and benefits. I think it is 44 <br />important for communities to be aware that the public is expecting this and it is also important from an 45 <br />economic development perspective because with economic development that is becoming more and 46 <br />more tied to having access to wireless telecommunication services. 47 <br /> 48 <br />Moving on to our application, this is an application that is very important, obviously to American Tower 49 <br />and AT&T but I also think it is important for Orange County. There are many areas of Orange County 50 <br />that have no coverage or insufficient coverage and there has not been a new tower constructed… I 51 <br />should say was actually constructed and approved in the spring 2009. With the demand for more 52 <br />services due to the new technology that the public is expecting, the infrastructure has not kept pace 53