6.15. SR 05-19-1997 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Memo to the Mayor and City Council/OA 97-7 Page 2 May 19, 1997 ..................... State or local government or instrumentality thereof over decisions regarding the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities." The Act does place three important limitations on local governments: 1) local governments shall not unreasonably discriminate among providers of functionally equivalent services; 2) local governments shall not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the provision of personal wireless services, and 3) no local government may regulate the placement, construction or modification of personal wireless facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the FCC's regulations concerning such emissions. PCS Industry The expansion of the wireless telecommunications industry will result in the proliferation of new telecommunication towers. Each of the providers will have to set up its own antenna and tower sites. As the demand for PCS increases so will the need for additional antenna locations. The PCS providers are now in the process of setting up their networks and locating appropriate sites for the cells. Each cell consists of antennas, a tower and transmitting equipment. Each tower has it's own services area and once a customer leaves that service area the call is automatically transferred to the next tower. Because of the nature of the PCS signal, service areas for each tower are smaller than those associated with cellular phones resulting in the need for more towers. Providers typically have 4 criteria which need to be met when looking for available sites: the site must meet locational requirements to be able to send and receive signals within the service area; the site must be physically buildable; · the provider must be able to reach a lease agreement with the landowner, · the applicant has to be able to get the needed local approvals such as zoning, planning and building. Current Ordinance The current procedure for handling requests for antenna towers involves rezoning the subject property to Antenna Tower Overlay District (AT) and requiring a conditional use permit for the tower. The decision to approve a rezoning request is based on upon compatibility with surrounding land uses. Along with the all the regulations applicable to the underlying zoning district, antenna towers are subject to 8 standards as outlined in the AT Overlay District. (see attached ordinance) k\elkriver\sys\shrdoc\planning\scott\towercc.doc