[Durham INC] Cell Towers, Citizen Notification, and the UDO

[Interneighborhood Council]

Dear City Council Member:
                            2 August 2013

Thank you for responding to concern in the greater Durham Community about
the deployment of cell towers in residential areas without resident
engagement.  We appreciate Council authorizing revision of Wireless
Communications Facilities (WCFs) regulations in the Unified Development
Ordinance (UDO).  For InterNeighborhood Council (INC), I’m writing to touch
bases with you on that process and on a moratorium for cell towers in
residential zones for the interim until the revision becomes law.

*Having learned that the Planning Department anticipates delivering a WCF
draft in September or October, we think it’s timely to reiterate to you and
planning staff what we consider essential. Neighborhoods request the
following standards and requirements be incorporated in the UDO:*

   1. **The safety, aesthetics and land use priorities of residents should
   be explicitly identified in the UDO text as *standards**.*  NC
   statute160A-400.52 enables local government to address these concerns
   surrounding placement of wireless facilities in residential areas.
    2. **The *approval authority* for any freestanding cell tower in a
   residential zone should be a quasi-judicial entity or elected officials,
   the latter to be preferred, through a special use permit process which
   includes prior notification of residents within 1000 ft of the property on
   which a tower is to be sited and residents’ inclusion in a public hearing.
   The present administrative-only approval, by the Director of Planning in
   the city and the Development Review Board in the county, is discretionary
   authority not compliant with NC statutes 153A-349 & 160A-393.

*Our resolution for a moratorium on cell towers in residential zones until
existing regulations are changed reflects neighborhoods feeling vulnerable.
* The concern of residents near the 7820 Guess Road “American Tower Lowell
Rd.” is a case in point.  Residents were notified of the tower and given a
planner’s name for a case file, but don’t understand whether or where they
have a right to formally respond.  Few homeowners typically surf government
websites.  If they are guided to “current submittals” at the City-County
Planning Department website, they find site plan applications are sixty
days behind (on 7/29 the list of submittals stopped on 5/30).  This
suggests a site plan for a concealed cell phone tower in the city could be
submitted and approved before it’s posted for public knowledge.

What are the possible solutions to this vulnerability? NCGS 160A-381(e) and
153A-340 (h) say local governments can initiate a moratorium either up to
or over 60 days. If you believe there is a simpler alternative, might it be
a directive from Council and Commissioners to postpone accepting concealed
cell tower applications targeting residential zones until the UDO revision
is final? This would echo the directive of Council to Planning March 18,
that until the UDO is revised, residents within 1000 ft. of a proposed site
should *as a courtesy* be notified.  We’ll speak on these issues at your
convenience. INC’s aim is to achieve in the Durham community goals and
rules we can all commit to.

THE INTERNEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL OF DURHAM

Respectfully,

John Martin, President

*
Resolution by the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham on the siting and
approval of cell towers in residential areas:*

Whereas site plans seeking to place Freestanding Wireless Communications
Facilities (cell towers) in residential zones should require local
knowledge and opportunity for citizen input, and

Whereas, Amendment TC1100007 to the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO),
which was adopted by the Council on March 18 and went into effect June 1,
shifted the approval authority for such towers from a board of ten
administrative staff (the Development Review Board) to a single
administrator (the Director of Planning), and

Whereas, Durham is still out of compliance with state statutes that
required local governments to eliminate from their development ordinances
unjustifiable administrative discretionary authority by Jan 1, 2010, and

Whereas, In March and April 2013, INC presented to Council, County
Commissioners and the Joint City County Planning Committee a review of the
UDO, which found that the existing administrative-only approval of
Freestanding Wireless Communication Facilities has no legal base, and that
such discretionary decisions require special use permits which are the
province of quasi-judicial and/or legislative entities, entailing public
notification and hearings, and

Whereas, we appreciate that in response to citizen requests Durham City
Council has committed to revising its regulations for Wireless
Communications Facilities but we are concerned about cell tower site
applications that may surface during that interim, therefore

We request that City Council place a moratorium on approval of cell towers
in residential zones until such time as the city and county elected
officials will have revised the existing wireless communications
regulations in the UDO to alter the present process which allows cell tower
siting in residential zones without resident notification or input.

Adopted by the INC Delegate Assembly, this 25 day of June, 2013

THE INTERNEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL OF DURHAM

John Martin, President
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://rtpnet.org/pipermail/inc-list/attachments/20130806/3bf8c8d6/attachment.html>