Ordinance No. 20063 - Laserfiche WebLink

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fall within this category. Testimony by telecommunications providers asserted that the City's requirement that providers obtain a conditional use permit SCUP} fully protects the City, tl-~ereby obviating any need for the moratorium. The providers supported their assertion by acknowledging that through the CUP process, the City can require co-location and the use of tower designs and technology which makes ca-location possible. At present, the criteria contained in EC 9.702~a~ related to compatibility and minimization of impact ~~ will allow consideration of some of the issues related to siting, design, height and co-location. 1t will allow the City to require co-location where technologically possible. However, the conditional use permit process SEC x.696 - 9.722} could not possibly enable the City to fully protect against the proliferation of wireless communications facilities at this time. Absent the City-wide siting analysis covering the various forms of wireless communications providers including cellular, PCS, SMR and paging services}, it will not be possible to determine whether a proposed site is the best site in terms of serving other providers as well, 1n addition, absent a study of the various technologies related to tower construction, it will not be possible to evaluate in a comprehensive manner whether the proposed design is the one best able to accommodate the maximum number of wireless communications providers. Cnly with the gathering of additional information, and possibly a change in the zoning code, can the City ensure that all providers are able to construct the facilities they seek in locations and on towers that minimize the number and impact of those facilities on the public. At least one provider has suggested that the City Council is adopting a moratorium in order to require providers to locate on City-owned sites. Any such suggestion is false. Neither the Council nor the CCT has made any decisions, or even had any discussion, about limiting tower locations to City-owned sites. 14. The moratorium is sufficiently limited to ensure that a needed supply of affected housing types and the supply of commercial and industrial facilities within or in proximity to the City are not unreasonably restricted by the adoption of the moratorium. Indeed, the moratorium is limited to permitting and construction of towers and antennas for wireless telecommunications. The moratorium does not affect in any manner the supply of housing types, or the supply of other commercial or industrial facilities. one provider testified that PCS wireless communications facilities are "needed commercial" facilities that must be allowed to be constructed, since there are no such facilities today. There are, however, cellular facilities already located within, and in proximity to, the City. There is no evidence of an immediate need for PCS services, A 120-day delay in the construction of towers or antennas to provide their new technology will not unreasonably restrict commercial facilities. The City cannot, consistent with the Telecommunications Act, exempt from the moratorium towers for one PCS provider, without also exempting towers for other similarly situated telecommunications providers: to da sa would violate the non-discrimination requirement of that Act. 15. There are no satisfactory alternative methods of achieving the objectives of the moratorium. As noted above, the existing conditional use permit process does not allow the City time to develop a coordinated and consistent approach that ensures all similarly situated providers are treated inexactly the same manner, and to ensure that no more wireless facilities are constructed than necessary to serve all providers desiring access to the City. „ . 16. The public harm which would be caused by failure to impose a moratorium outweighs the adverse effects on other affected local governments, including shifts in demand for housing or economic development, public facilities and services and buildable lands, and the -5-