By the spring, our City Council responded, passing a moratorium to halt cell tower construction citywide. Since then, the staff has been working on a wireless ordinance, a draft copy of which was issued last week. Like with Glendale’s groundbreaking smoking ordinance, city staff members have taken a leadership position on wireless legislation, but telecommunications companies will bring plenty of pressure.
We are now in the public comment period, and GO ACT has reviewed the ordinance. The simplest test of the draft ordinance’s strength is as follows: If it were passed two years ago, would it have prevented the tower construction in front of my home? And the answer is: We don’t know.
Notice given to neighbors would have been improved given the new draft ordinance. In the current ordinance, an expert review can be called upon (and paid for by telecom companies) and possibly this could have prevented the tower.
But again, we don’t know. And the reason for this ambiguous answer is that there is a key omission from this otherwise strong ordinance that relates to setback requirements.
The ordinance contains setback requirements when towers are constructed on private land, but for public rights of way, there are no new measures. That means a tower that sits on the sidewalk in your neighborhood would still go through the same public works process that nearly put a tower in front of my home. And it can still be built inches from your property, dwarfing your home and reducing the quality and value of life on your street.
