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like to be a part of the upcoming discussion and he thanked the County Commissioners for this <br />opportunity. The last issue is that Verizon has been working with Crown Castle Atlantic for 12-14 <br />months developing a site at the intersection of NC54 and Gold Mine Road. His hope is that the County <br />Commissioners will adopt a moratorium that will not apply to any applications received before the time <br />of the enactment of the moratorium. He has language that will accomplish this, and he distributed this <br />information. There were two provisions. The first proposed amendment is that the moratorium will not <br />apply to any application for a special use permit to construct a telecommunications facility that was filed <br />with the Planning Department on or before the effective date of this moratorium. Regarding the pre- <br />application meeting, he said that the application was forced into an expedited pattern and there was no <br />time to have the meeting before tonight. He asked the County Commissioners to consider letting the <br />application go forward because they have been working on it for so long. <br />Commissioner Gordon asked Mr. Ekstrand if he feels they have met the requirements of the <br />ordinance and he said that they did meet the requirement. They still need to have apre-application <br />meeting with Tom King. He does not agree that not having the pre-application meeting invalidates their <br />application. <br />Joey Green with Crown Castle Atlantic noted that since word of the moratorium in early <br />February, there has still only been one application. He asked that the County Commissioners consider <br />letting their application,' which was filed yesterday, be exempt from the moratorium. <br />Bill Howard from American Tower encouraged the County Commissioners to allow co- <br />locations during the moratorium. He feels that this can continue without violating any requirement. He <br />distributed some information. He also spoke about emergency management and said that there are <br />facilities called "Cellular on Wheels", which are temporary transportable towers. The facilities are <br />mobile and provide prompt response so that when electricity is out and other weather emergencies <br />happen, the facilities can go up in a short amount of time and provide additional capacity to keep the <br />wireless telecommunications going. He said that this possibility might have a distinct effect on the <br />language of any new ordinance. <br />Chair Jacobs asked about the discussion by the Planning Board on applications received <br />between the public hearing and today. Craig Benedict said that the Planning Board felt that a <br />moratorium should be placed on all applications submitted but not voted on. Chair Jacobs asked how <br />long it takes for an application to be approved and Craig Benedict said that a Class B would take six <br />weeks and a Class A would take four to five months. <br />Chair Jacobs made reference to the recommendation not to allow co-location on power <br />poles and other structures and asked how this would be different from co-location on <br />telecommunications towers. Craig Benedict said that the only difference is that co-location on a power <br />pole requires a zoning compliance permit and co-location on an existing telecommunications tower is <br />not regulated. <br />A motion was made by Commissioner Halkiotis, seconded by Commissioner Brown to close <br />the public hearing. <br />VOTE: UNANIMOUS <br />Geoffrey Gledhill made reference to the proposal of the language change (handwritten) and <br />recommended for #2 after "equipment on", the following: "an existing structure, including but not limited <br />to co-location on existing towers...." He agreed with #1. This would exclude from the moratorium those <br />activities and would accomplish the recommendation of the Planning Board. <br />Commissioner Gordon disagreed with broadening the language to include co-location on <br />existing structures. <br />A motion was made by Commissioner Brown, seconded by Commissioner Halkiotis to adopt <br />and authorize the Chair to sign the ordinance establishing asix-month moratorium on <br />telecommunication towers, and to include the additional language as proposed by Mr. Howard (not with <br />Geoffrey Gledhill's addition) to be clear that we are not increasing the height of the structures. <br />