(a) The Chief Information Officer must establish and maintain a process to coordinate the location of public and private transmission facilities in the County. The County Executive must issue regulations to implement this process, including time limits for any review of a siting decision by the CIO or the CIO’s designee or contractor, or the Transmission Facility Coordinating Group. The Executive may adopt regulations under method (3) to set fees for reviewing and coordinating the siting of each proposed transmission facility that requires a building permit, special exception, or other County approval. The regulations may set different fees for certain categories of applicants to reflect different costs to the County to review and coordinate the siting of facilities by that type of applicant. The Executive must establish, and may modify, fee categories by method (2) regulation.
(b) As used in this Section:
(1) transmission facility means any telecommunications facility or radio and television broadcasting tower, including any antenna, tower, monopole, or other structure used primarily to receive or transmit wireless voice, data, or image information (or any combination of them):
(2) land use agency means the Planning Board, the County Board of Appeals, the Department of Environmental Protection, and any other public agency or body with jurisdiction over the siting of any transmission facility, including any municipal land use agency or body; and
(3) land-owning agency means any government agency which owns or controls any land on which a transmission facility is located or proposed to be located.
(c) As part of the coordination process set up under subsection (a), the Director’s designee or contractor must:
(1) maintain a database of all transmission facilities located in the County, including any that the Director knows are proposed to be located in the County;
(2) serve as a central source of information and a technical resource on the siting of transmission facilities for land use agencies, land-owning agencies, private landowners, telecommunications carriers, and the public;
(3) in order to promote the appropriate and efficient location and co-location of transmission facilities and minimize any adverse impact on other land uses in the County and on transmission facilities used by government agencies:
(A) review the siting of each proposed transmission facility;
(B) advise any land use agency or land-owning agency on the technical rationale at that location for any transmission facility and whether it qualifies under County land use laws as a public or private use; and
(C) recommend to any land use agency a decision on any pending siting issue, including any appropriate provisions governing removal of the facility after its useful life concludes and the posting of a bond to guarantee removal;
(4) assist public participation in the process of siting transmission facilities; and
(5) report annually to the County Executive and County Council on transmission facility siting and policy issues.
(d) (1) The Director must convene a Transmission Facility Coordinating Group and select a chair from among its members. The Group consists of the Director’s designee or contractor and a designee of:
(A) the Planning Board;
(B) the Office of Management and Budget;
(C) the cable television administrator in the Department of Technology and Enterprise Business Solutions;
(D) the Department of Transportation;
(E) the Department of Permitting Services; and
(F) any other County, bi-county, or municipal department or agency which the Director invites to send a designee.
(2) The Group must:
(A) review and comment, with due regard for the schedule in any pending action or proceeding, on any pending transmission facility policy or siting issue; and
(B) facilitate communications between the member agencies on transmission facility policy and siting issues. The Group’s comments in any quasi- judicial proceeding must be placed on the proceeding record and made available to all parties.
(e) Each land-owning agency in County government, and any other land-owning agency which receives County funding, must submit to the Director a transmission facility location plan. The plan must clearly indicate the location of every existing and the general location of any proposed transmission facility on land owned or controlled by the department or agency. The department or agency must update the plan each year.
(f) Every applicant for a building permit or special exception for a transmission facility must submit to the Director a transmission facility location plan if a plan from the applicant is not already on file. The plan must clearly indicate the location of every existing and the general location of any proposed transmission facility owned or controlled by the applicant. The applicant must update the plan each year. The Director must not disclose any information in the plan which qualifies as confidential under the state public information law to any person except the Director’s designee or contractor and the other members of the Transmission Facility Coordinating Group, and they must not disclose any such information to any other person. (1996 L.M.C., ch. 7, § 1; 2000 L.M.C., ch. 9; 2002 L.M.C., ch. 5, § 1; 2002 L.M.C., ch. 25, § 1; 2005 L.M.C., ch 30, § 1; 2006 L.M.C., ch. 21, § 1; 2008 L.M.C., ch. 5, § 1; 2021 L.M.C., ch. 10, §1.)
Editor’s note—See County Attorney Opinion dated 8/13/07 regarding data security issue relating to the role of ITPAC.
2008 L.M.C., ch. 5, § 3, states: Sec. 3. Any regulation in effect when this Act takes effect that implements a function transferred to another Department or Office under Section 1 of this Act continues in effect, but any reference in any regulation to the Department from which the function was transferred must be treated as referring to the Department from which the function is transferred. The transfer of a function under this Act does not affect any right of a party to any legal proceeding begun before this Act took effect.
2002 L.M.C., ch. 25, § 2, Initial fees, states: Until modified or superseded by a regulation issued under Section 2-58E(a) of the Code, as amended by this Act, the initial fees and fee categories authorized by that Section are:
(a) Annual fee. $1,000 a year, for reviewing each applicant's annual plan and providing access to certain County Geographic Information Service (GIS) data about existing telecommunications transmission facility sites.
(b) Minor modification. $500, for reviewing an application to take any of the following actions at a single site: (1) modify one or more existing antennas; (2) add an antenna that would not alter the dimensions of the support structure; or (3) modify or add equipment that would not expand the approved ground space.
(c) Multiple modification. $1,500, for reviewing an application to modify, or replace with a similar item, an antenna or equipment at 2 or more existing sites in a manner that would not change the support structure or the ground occupied by the telecommunications facility or require any other County approval.
(d) Co-location on existing structure. $1,800, for reviewing an application to install additional antennas on an existing support structure in a zone where the structure is a permitted use under Chapter 59.
(e) New support structure - permitted use. $2,500, for reviewing an application to construct a new support structure where permitted by Chapter 59.
(f) New support structure - special exception. $3,000, for reviewing an application to construct a new or modified support structure that would require, under Chapter 59: (1) approval or modification of a special exception; or (2) review under the mandatory referral process.
2002 L.M.C., ch. 5, § 3, states: "Transition. (a) Any function performed by the Department of Information Systems and Telecommunications or the office of cable communications in the Department of Housing and Community Affairs immediately before this Act takes effect [April 11, 2002] are transferred to the Department of Technology Services. (b) A regulation that implements a function assigned to the Department of Technology Services by this Act continues in effect but any reference to any other agency that performed the function must be treated as a reference to the Department of Technology Services.