Agenda - Planning Commission - 08/01/1995

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'ews JUNE 1995 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION Local Planning Issues in Siting Cellulcir Towers By Michelle Gregory In coming months, communities may lose the right to regulate the siting of cellular telephone towers, just as that industry is emerging as a major player in the larger telecommunications industry. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last December that asks for federal preemption of local zoning powers over cellular transmission facilities. This issue of Zoning News aims to acquaint local pNnners with the impacts, real and perceived, of cellular towers. Local siting regulations, staff reports, and telecommunications plans from 15 jurisdictions were reviewed to provide a summary of siting;.considerations. Planners should understand that some jurisdictions regulate cellular towers specifically, while others have regulations that apply to "communication towers" generally. Wherever possible, we have tried to cull examples:of regulatory techniques specific to cellular technology. These varying degrees of specificity also exist in the regulations of marly state communications and public utilities agencies. Planners should learn their state's bureaucratic structure and its ~eflnition of communication towers before drafting local regulations. Representatives of the cellfflar industry were also consulted for this article. In contrast to the tone of the CTIA petition, many expressed an eagerness to work with APA and local communities to educate planners and citizens toward the development of safe, fair, and informed regulations. Cellular History' In 1974, the FCC expanded the radio spectrum available to the public in order to make room for budding cellular telecommu- nications technology. Through the mid-1980s, the industry worked to develop higher-quality transmission devices. Cellular technology was first marketed ~to consumers in the form of the car phone. It presented local governments with the phenomena of cellular telephone antennas.and the towers on which they are mounted--towers that had to be erected somewhere in the community. Unlike ground-wired telecommunications, cellular technology made it possible for a caller to travel while commu- nicating with someone at a conventional telephone or with another mobile user. Cellular technology, explained in greater detail below, operates on a fixed number of channels that share the same radio waves. As a mobile user passes through "cells" that parcel the landscape into a transmitting grid, the caller's connection is "patched" from one cell antenna to the next. Twenty years later, personal communication services (PCS) have expanded to include hand-held portable phones and paging systems, and they are everywhere. A survey in the January 1993 issue of Consume/Reports reported that cellular technology added an average of 7,300 users per day in 1992, bringing the U.S. total to about 10 million. Those numbers have continued to grow, reaching more than 24 million by the end of last year. That, in turn, has expanded the number of cellular transmission sites to 17,920 last December from just. 384 a decade earlier. In response to both the increasing demand for mobile communication options and a very aggressive lobbying effort by the industry, the FCC opened another portion of the airwaves for industry use. On March 14, the agency completed the biggest auction in U.S. history, lasting three months and costing telecommunications carriers $7 billion. The airwave rights were divided geographically intcr 99 licenses that went to commercial mobile radio service (CMRS) carriers nationwide. The licenses were awarded to the highest bidders among a combination of older and newly formed companies. The FCC will auction more licenses later this year to accommodate private mobile radio service (PMRS) carriers, which serve freight transporters, public safety entities, citizens band radio, and ham operators. The newly licensed carriers are already acquiring sites for towers and their accompanying equipment buildings. Where a market exists for cellular communications, local government must be prepared to deal with siting issues. ~ The industry's growth ~C;mo~tflaged cellular has outpaced many local ~,tower: a solutto, to governments' ability to : aesthetic zo,ing issues understand the impacts of ., cellular towers and, ~ therefore, to properly site and regulate them. The situation is further complicated when residents, ": expressing alarm over the aesthetic and reported health-related effects of cellular towers, prompt hasty, reactionary regulation. To avoid writing bad law, some communities have instituted siting moratoriums until they have ample opportunity to research and formulate regulations that are fair to both the community and the industry. Both trends have put carriers on the offensive. Thwarted by local "learning curves" and "regulatory barriers" in their efforts to break into new markets, they have sought powerful remedies. The CTIA petition argues that the supremacy clause (section 332) of the 1934 Federal Communications Act authorizes preemption of state and local regulation of cellular tower siting. APA, in a letter to the FCC, expressed opposition to such preemption. In March, executive director Michael Barker told the FCC that local communities and planners are in the best position to balance their concerns with the needs of the cellular industry. The National